The blog of author Dennis Cooper

Month: November 2020 (Page 10 of 12)

Shirley Clarke Day

 

‘Born October 2, 1919 in New York, Shirley Brimberg Clarke danced into the world of art in her teens, studying with such innovative choreographers as Martha Graham, Hanya Holm and Doris Humphrey.

‘After marrying and having a daughter, Clarke turned her talents to cinema, becoming an esteemed filmmaker at a time when few women worked in the field. Her early shorts reflected her lifelong love of dance along with a growing mastery of the new medium. In her award-winning A Dance in the Sun (1953), In Paris Parks (1954), Bullfight (1955) and A Moment in Love (1957), Clarke captured movement on film in a new way, eschewing close-ups in favor of long takes and innovative editing. An active member and advocate of New York’s independent film community, Clarke later turned her attention to social-issue filmmaking.

‘For her first feature, Clarke took on an acclaimed and controversial stage play by Jack Gelber. Her adaptation of The Connection (1961) won praise for its graphic, unglamorous depiction of drug use, but embroiled Clarke in a two-year censorship battle, which she ultimately won. Her next film, The Cool World (1964), was a further collaboration with Carl Lee, the African American star of The Connection and Clarke’s long-time romantic partner (until his death in 1986).

‘In 1963, Clarke directed Robert Frost: A Lover’s Quarrel with the World. Filmed months before the poet’s death, the documentary revealed Frost’s warmth and charm in speaking engagements and at home. Clarke was reportedly unhappy with the final cut, but the film went on to win the Oscar for Best Documentary. Her daughter Wendy writes, “Shirley did consider (it an honor] that she won an Academy Award for this film and even went to Los Angeles to the Awards. She sat just behind Danny Kaye.”

‘Clarke’s fourth feature, Portrait of Jason (1967), was a completely different kind of project. A pure documentary without adornment, Portrait was created from a single, 12-hour-long interview with Jason Holliday, a gay African American hustler and aspiring nightclub performer. Holliday’s stories of racism, homophobia, parental abuse, drugs, sex and prostitution would have been shocking if not for his candor, humor and acerbic charm. The film was a revelation and remains one of the most respected LGBT films.

‘Despite the success of Portrait of Jason, Clarke found it increasingly difficult to get financing for her films. From 1975 to 1985 she redirected her talents to teaching film and video production at UCLA. Clarke’s fifth and final feature, Ornette: Made in America was well-received portrait of the eccentric musical genius and a cinematic comeback for Clarke. Once again, she was on the cutting edge of film style, weaving documentary footage, video art, music videos and architecture into a vibrant collage that mirrored Coleman’s groundbreaking jazz. It was her groovy swan song, as Clarke then retired. She died of a stroke in Boston in 1997.

‘For a director whose films were designed to unsettle audiences, perhaps the most shocking aspect of Clarke’s career is her lack of recognition today. Although acknowledged as a major influence by many current filmmakers, there is not one single book devoted to her work, nor has there been a significant re-release of her films.’ — Project Shirley

 

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Stills












































 

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Further

Shirley Clarke Site
Shirley Clarke @ IMDb
A profile of Shirley Clarke
Shirley Clarke Saw the Future of Cinema
The Magic Box: The Films of Shirley Clarke, 1929–1987
Shirley Clarke @ MUBI
Shirley Clarke @ Milestone Films
The Complicated Camera of Filmmaker Shirley Clarke
Celebrating Shirley Clarke
choreography of cinema : an interview with shirley clarke
Interview with Shirley Clarke
Shirley Clarke @ letterboxd
PORTRAIT OF SHIRLEY: a film in progress about Shirley Clarke
Shirley Clarke, l’anti-Hollywoodienne
Shirley Clarke’s ‘Connection’: Will It Click At Last?
Thoughts on Shirley Clarke and The TP Videospace Troupe
SHIRLEY CLARKE MAKES THE CONNECTION
Shirley Clarke @ UNDERGROUND FILM JOURNAL
Shirley Clarke @ senses of cinema
Experimental director Shirley Clarke on her film about drug addiction – archive, 1961
6 Filmmaking Tips from Shirley Clarke
Shirley Clarke: The godmother of indie cinema
Shirley Clarke – Is this reality?
When Shirley Clarke Met Roger Corman
Shirley Clarke and the Obscuring of Reality
TO THE BEAT OF SHIRLEY CLARKE

 

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Extras


Portrait of Shirley Clarke (1968)


Shirley Clarke: A Retrospective


Shirley Clarke on women in film and men in money

 

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Interview (1964)
by Harriet Polt/Film Comment

 

How did you get your start in filmmaking?

My first film was a short dance film called Dance in the Sun. When I saw the first rushes I was horrified: it was just terrible. I debated on whether to finish it or not, but I finally decided to go ahead, because if I didn’t I would never learn anything. Still, most dance films are so terrible that mine was among the best, and it won a prize. This made me an authority on dance films. I then made two more dance films and a number of other short features: seven all together before I made The Connection. One of the shorts, Skyscraper, won a prize in Venice and also in the U.S. and gave me a name, making it possible for me to go into features. The first film I really felt strongly about, though, was Scary Time, a film I made for UNICEF. It is a kind of stream-of-consciousness film juxtaposing shots of kids dressed for Halloween as skeletons, and other kids who really are skeletons. The film ends with a long, long shot of a Moroccan baby whose face is all covered with flies; all through the shot, the baby never moves to brush the flies away, as if to say, isn’t everybody covered with flies? UNICEF hated this and wanted me to cut it from the picture, but I refused. The film is hardly ever shown. It was made to be used in Western countries, to influence people to get their governments to give money to UNICEF. But so far as I know, it has never played in the U.S. and probably not in any of the Eastern countries either.

How did you come to make The Connection?

It was easy. I went to see the play and decided I wanted to make a film of it. The author, Jack Gelber, sold me the rights to it. He had refused a number of other filmmakers before me.

Do you intend to go on making features or do you plan more shorts?

Economically, it’s impossible to stay with shorts. You have to find a sponsor, and then you might as well be working for Hollywood.

How do you feel about Hollywood? Do you have any intention of making a film there?

Never. Hollywood has preconceived ideas about what audiences want. The Hollywood idea is that films about Negroes or films about young boys don’t make money. I would never have got money in Hollywood to make The Cool World.

Where did you get the money to make your films?

I raised it from many people, like the people who give money to put on plays and are interested in the glamor of being an “angel.” Of course, you have to keep costs down and only plan films that can be made on a low budget. The Cool World cost $250,000, which is about a fourth of what it would have cost to make in Hollywood. But the ease with which one can get money for a film depends very much on the success of the last film.

There is much talk of a “New York School.” Do you consider yourself a part of this?

I’m not sure there is such a thing. Both in New York and on the Coast there is a renaissance of films being made by individuals. These individuals come in two varieties: the young men who are trying to get to Hollywood, and the kind who want to remain personal and keep costs down. This is the only common ground.

Mrs. Clarke, how does it feel to be a woman film director?

It’s fun. I find it an advantage being a woman, but perhaps that’s because I am used to being one. I find that I can get away with things that a man wouldn’t. At first I was worried about having problems with male crews, but then I found that those who don’t like working with a woman simply don’t join up. Pretty soon we begin functioning as people, not as members of different sexes. I do have some trouble working with actresses. I didn’t get along at all with Yolanda Rodriguez, the girl who played Luanne in The Cool World.

How did you become interested in the Negro problem?

For the past four or five years I have felt that this is America’s key problem. Without a solution to it, we will never have a free country. After all, we whites are in the minority—two thirds of the world is colored.

Can you tell us something of how The Cool World was made?

The exteriors were all shot on location in Harlem. For the interiors, the New York Housing Authority gave us the use of a whole tenement building which was about to be demolished. For each set, we used a different floor of the building. We didn’t have to buy a stick of furniture—we just used what was there. Our interiors were all pre-lit, so we could move the camera freely. Throughout the film, the camera was hand-held. For sound, we used radiomicrophones, so we didn’t need a boom. The film took almost a year to make, plus four months of casting.

How did you do your casting?

Carl Lee (who plays the part of “Priest” in the film) did most of the casting. He went around to all sorts of youth organizations—settlement houses, social clubs, and so forth. Everywhere he went, the directors would bring out their star pupils. But these kids were completely unable to act. Then Carl would see some kid slinking around the school yard and would ask for him. “You don ‘t want him!” the director would say. But we took these kids to a big loft that we had, and we began improvising from the story. This got them acting, and also made the whole thing possible, because, although they are very bright, many of these kids can’t read. We used this technique throughout the film—a mixture of memorizing lines and improvising. You can’t get quiet, tender moments by improvising, so those we had to write out. But many of the others we improvised, using a straight Stanislavsky technique either before or during the shooting. We never did a scene without checking with the kids first to see if the action seemed believable to them.

How do you like working with non-professional actors?

Well, I worked with a combination of professionals and non-professionals which is confusing. You have to try to make the non-professionals be what they are, and at the same time you have to break the professionals of their bad habits. The kids had no bad acting habits or preconceptions. They were just wonderful to work with—working 18 hours a day, seven days a week, for 12 weeks without a complaint. And shooting a film can sometimes become pretty dull for the actors.

What has become of these kids since The Cool World?

These were all kids who had police records. The life they played in the film was pretty much the life they had lived. Now they’ve changed. Hampton Clanton, who plays the lead, is finishing his last year of high school and goes to a neighborhood playhouse. The boy who plays the leader of the enemy gang is working as a messenger for a playhouse. Some of the boys are acting in an off-Broadway play that our set-builder has written. I don’t know what Yolanda Rodriguez is doing—she didn’t want to be an actress at all. We had to beg her to come all the time. She was working after school for a bra manufacturer, which interested her much more than the film.

How do you explain the change in the lives of these boys?

Their main problem is a lack of self-identity, of dignity. The film gave them a sense of pride: the idea that they are important enough to make a film about what we’re curious about is how these kinds of kids will react when they see the film. We would like them to come out a little straighter and prouder than when they went in.

What are your plans for future productions?

Right now I feel I am still working on The Cool World. The film was barely finished when we brought it to Venice, and it still needs some cutting. After that, I want to take a couple of months to plan for the next two productions. I would like to keep the same producer and the same technical people. Eventually, I would like to form a co-op with other directors and produce for each other. We have various enough backgrounds in film that we have an overall knowledge of how to make a film. That wary, too, we could covet each other’s losses. So, if one director’s film loses money, another will gain, and the co-op will still break even. I’m not the only person who wants to do this sort of films I’m doing, or the only person with talent. But talent isn’t enough for a modern artist. He has to be a salesman too. And he has to be willing to plunge in, as I did with that awful dance film. Other people are too cautious. As for me, I don’t care. If the film doesn’t succeed, it’s only money, or a few years of your life.

Do you expect to have any trouble with censorship, as you did with The Connection?

We won the court case in New York with The Connection so we shouldn’t have any trouble. Some cities, for example Chicago, still won’t play The Connection. Burt most cities that have a censorship board will follow New York’s lead. Of course, it did take a year to get that case through the court.

If it’s not being too personal, how did you eat during that year, or at other slack times?

Most filmmakers have to accept commissions or films, or do other little jobs. I’m lucky—I have a husband who has a regular job.

 

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15 of Shirley Clarke’s 32 films

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Dance in the Sun (1953)
‘Drawing on her dance background for her first film, Shirley Clarke’s Dance in the Sun is a simple, straightforward work of filmed dance–but just because it’s simple doesn’t mean it’s not effective. The music (Right up to the closing cigarette break!) is engaging and dancer Daniel Nagrin’s movements are energetic enough that the film-essentially in two halves-indoor and outdoor–shifts from claustrophobic, nervous energy to expressive joy at being out in the world. Short enough that you could watch it on the go in the morning before work, and it just might have you bouncing out into the world as well.’ — Jay D ‘s Watching

Watch the entirety here

 

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Bullfight (1955)
‘Clarke parallels the sense of spectacle and the real violence of an actual bullfight with a dance interpretation of the emotional experience, using a distillation of the ritual gestures in the Spanish bull ring. In her intense interpretation, Sokolow embodies both matador and bull, both executioner and the sacrifice.’ — DANCE ON CAMERA


the entirety

 

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A Moment in Love (1956)
‘A balletic meeting between two lovers progresses from a woodland tryst up to the mountain tops. There are some interesting camera effects with multiple exposures or a vanishing figure. Unlike Clarke’s early Dance in the Sun, or her later dance-based films (Four Journeys into Mystic Time), A Moment in Love places cinema uppermost and the dancing second. As the dancers move, so does the camera, becoming almost like a dancer itself. Says Clarke, “I started choreographing the camera as well as the dancers in the frame”. At one point, the dancers appear to be suspended in the clouds.’ — Chris Docker


Excerpt


A Moment in Love Before and After Restoration Comparison

 

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Brussels Loops (1957)
‘A collection of twenty short films, averaging 2-3 minutes, by various filmmakers depicting American life, intended to be shown in a continuous loop at the American Pavilion of the 1958 Brussels World’s Fair.’ — IMDb


Excerpt: Shirley Clarke BRUSSELS LOOPS [1958] ► LIVE SCORE by MTS

 

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Bridges-Go-Round (1958)
‘Made out of footage rejected by the U.S. State Department for its commissioned “Brussels loops” project, in this film Clarke makes New York City bridges dance using fast editing and superimposition. Clarke made two versions of this film using different soundtracks over an identical picture. One version uses an electronic music score written by Louis and Bebe Barron; the other version uses a jazz score written by Teo Macero. The film is currently released with both versions spliced onto one reel, creating an eight-minute film.’ — lib.berkeley.edu


the entirety

 

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Skyscraper (1959)
‘In Clarke’s 1959 short film Skyscraper, it’s the construction of a building that becomes a dynamic performance, one in which bodies, surfaces, space and light interact. Through directing In Paris Parks (1954), Clarke had found that “you can make dance films without using dancers,” and she unexpectedly stresses the choreographic aspects even in this all-male environment. Skyscraper is also the first film in which Clarke addressed the medium’s ability to question social hierarchy. Here, site workers become the narrators and so are framed as individuals instead of merely a workforce. Clarke said: “It was really important to me to try to solve the problem of the disembodied God-like voice that was the narration style in the 1950s.”’ — bfi


Teaser

 

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Scary Time (1960)
‘Clarke started her narrative career with this little-seen short produced by UNICEF to promote their Halloween charity drive. Clarke deviates from the expected by comparing the closeups of the “scary” children in Halloween costumes to troubling images of sick and emaciated children in third-world countries. It was so effective, that the film was banned for many years.’ — Close Up Film Centre


the entirety

 

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The Connection (1961)
‘THE CONNECTION is one of the most vital, fascinating films of the American independent world. Created by a woman director, Shirley Clarke, at a time when they were in very short supply, the film shattered stereotypes in just about every conceivable way. And yet, the film remained unseen for many years. For her first feature film, she decided to take on a controversial play by Jack Gelber that was running off-Broadway. The Connection was a play within a play within a jazz concert. It portrayed a group of drug addicts, some of them jazz musicians, waiting in a New York loft apartment for their drug connection. A producer and a writer, meanwhile, have entered their lives to study them and write a play about them. The brilliantly written Beat dialogue was blended with jazz music written by the great pianist Freddie Redd.’ — Milestone Films


Teaser

 

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The Cool World (1963)
‘Based on the novel by Warren Miller about a teenager navigating the violent turf wars and internal hierarchies of Harlem gangs, and set to an unforgettable jazz score composed by Mal Waldron and performed by Dizzy Gillespie, Shirley Clarke’s The Cool World is a landmark of early American independent cinema. The film was produced by a young Frederick Wiseman, and it possesses something of a documentary quality as a result of its uptown location shooting, cast of local non-actors, and partially improvised performances. “Everything I’ve done,” Clarke declared late in her career, “is based on the duality of fantasy and reality.”‘ — filmlinc


Excerpt


Excerpt

 

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Robert Frost: A Lover’s Quarrel with the World (1963)
‘Bewildered by “the sideshow” of cameraman and crew members flanking him, Frost comments at the Sarah Lawrence College podium, “This is a documentary film going on … and [the shots] have all been about me with a hoe digging potatoes or walking in the woods, reciting my own poems.” The crowd laughs, as does he, clarifying, “I don’t farm very much — for many years, I have had a little garden — but it is a false picture that presents me as always digging potatoes or saying my own poems.” Crowd erupting once more, Frost concedes that the format Clarke uses at the moment is far preferable: “This time we are going to have it right, we are going to have it taped like this, with my crowd. [The crew was] with me today … on a carrier, you know, and I was with the commander. The old subject came up … peace and war, and I had to have another think at it.”’ — Project Shirley


Trailer

 

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Portrait of Jason (1967)
‘9pm Saturday, December 3rd 1966: shooting begins on Portrait of Jason. 9am Sunday, December 4th 1966: shooting concludes. Over twelve straight hours in Shirley Clarke’s penthouse suite at the Chelsea Hotel in New York City, Clarke and her small crew trained a camera on Jason Holliday and waited for him to detonate.

‘At the time of its release in 1967, Clarke’s experimental documentary Portrait of Jason screened for almost three months straight at the New Cinema Playhouse in Manhattan, and later played the festival circuit. The film reached legendary status in some film circles, not least because of its backing by filmmakers like John Cassavetes and Ingmar Bergman, the latter who dubbed it “The most extraordinary film I’ve seen in my life”. Largely unavailable for many years, a new restoration of Portrait of Jason led to a second world premiere at the Berlin Film Festival in 2013 and the film has subsequently enjoyed a mini-revival.

‘The film’s subject, Jason Holliday (né Aaron Payne), was a gay prostitute, raconteur, houseboy and bon vivant. Holliday is the only person to appear onscreen for the film’s entirety. Dressed in a tailored jacked and coke-bottle glasses, he laughs, drinks, smokes and masterfully narrates anecdotes from his life. The setting is simple: Jason is penned into a small area of Clarke’s apartment consisting of a day bed, fireplace and bookcase. Clarke’s filming style appears simple, too. Filmed in black and white, Jason speaks directly to the camera, prompted by questions off-screen. There are fewer than fifty shots, with scarcely noticeable editing to knit the film together, and a few out-of-focus or entirely black passages accompanied by Holliday’s audio. However, the film’s simplicity is a deception. Although Clarke’s method may seem ‘artless’, David Bordwell notes the transitions only mimic casual shooting. The film appears to unfold chronologically, but the out-of-focus passages conceal edits and obscure the progress of the shoot. The missing time is left unaccounted for, and we will probably never know in what order the events unfolded.’ — Rachel Brown


Teaser

 

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24 Frames Per Second (1977)
‘A vibrant–borderline epileptic–work of pure visual stimuli, 24 Frames Per Second was commissioned by the Los Angeles Museum of Art as a companion piece for a showcase of Persian art, with Clarke taking dozens of images from the exhibit and having them rapidly flicker by as her voice–heavily distorted–counts to 24.’ — letterboxd

Watch an excerpt here

 

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A Visual Diary (1980)
A Visual Diary is a look at a private moment in one’s life. A narrative form without utilizing a story line. The collaboration incorporates naturalistic non-verbal theater and dance techniques with photographs providing the environment.’ — letterboxd


the entirety

 

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Tongues (1982)
‘A tour-de-force synthesis of theater and video, Tongues is the collective title of a two-part collaboration by Shirley Clarke, distinguished actor/director Joseph Chaikin, and Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Sam Shepard. Both one-act monologues integrate the distinctive styles of these three artists: Shepard’s innovative, stream-of-consciousness language; Chaikin’s kinetic and exacting performance, which unifies the pieces; and Clarke’s dynamic, expressive choreography of image, sound and text. The cadences and inflections of Shepard’s jazz-related narrative voice and Chaikin’s dramatic expression of a multitude of personalities are heightened by Clarke’s syncopated use of digital effects, slow motion, and editing techniques to distort and manipulate the image.’ — eai

Watch two excerpts here

 

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Ornette: Made in America (1985)
Ornette: Made In America captures Ornette’s evolution over three decades. Returning home to Fort Worth, Texas in 1983 as a famed performer and composer, documentary footage, dramatic scenes, and some of the first music video-style segments ever made, chronicle his boyhood in segregated Texas and his subsequent emergence as an American cultural pioneer and world-class icon. Among those who contribute to the film include William Burroughs, Brion Gysin, Buckminster Fuller, Don Cherry, Yoko Ono, Charlie Haden, Robert Palmer, Jayne Cortez and John Rockwell.’ — Milestone Films


Trailer


Excerpt

 

 

*

p.s. Hey. ** David Ehrenstein, Hi. For me it’s all about the disempowerment, and now we’ll see. Everyone, FaBlog’s newbie is called ‘The BIGGEST LOSER and his LAWN JOCKEY TWINS’ and you can access it here. ** Bill, Hey, B. Word on ‘Possessor’ when you see it as I haven’t found it over here yet. Happy to hear that ‘Velocities’ is hitting the mark. Good weekend? ** Dominik, Hi, D!!! Yes, under the circumstances, an online life is pretty necessary. I hear you about avoiding possible plague leakers. I have a longish two-way train day trip in store for me tomorrow, and apparently trains are packed to the gills right now, and I’m sweating the stuffy compartments. I figured your government would be a Trumpster. Well, cool, fuck them. Happy you liked the video. That boy rules, and his musical taste is of course impeccable. (Airport 5 was a GbV side-project). I love your love, especially the lipstick on its teeth. I’m going to send you love like a packet of vanilla wafer cookies because I’m strangely dying to eat a million of them this morning for unknown reasons. ** _Black_Acrylic, As a near-lifelong Nintendo head, I encourage you. Oh, I loved the new Play Therapy episode. It went perfectly with the relief/exhilaration general mood of the weekend too. A serious corker, DJ sir. Temple Newsam is one beautiful place. What’s that name about? ** Steve Erickson, Hi. Yes, as I may have mentioned yesterday, when Biden won all the church bells in Paris rang simultaneously in celebration. Everyone, New song from Mr. Erickson. He will explain and point: ‘I planned to write a song yesterday based around those sirens and drums, but it didn’t come out the way I intended. But “Victoria” is practically the only one I’ve done almost entirely written by looping samples, at least at this length, although I did the drum programming and created an occasional chord and very simple melodies by layering samples of the same instrument playing different notes.’ ** JM, Hi, Josiah! You’re a pretty wonderfulness-exuding person yourself, so thank you. I love video games. I think they are, or maybe can be, a great art form. I’ve learned a ton as a writer from playing/studying how they use space and narrative and rhythm and so on. I’m good. France is struggling with the big C, yes. And it’s getting worse and worse. And I seriously fear how long and more restrictive our lockdown is going to get and last. But at least the US made a great move. That’s big. Man, I hope the troublesome production rights itself. What do you see as being wrong with it? That might be too complicated an answer, I guess? I’ll google Waitangi. I envy your upcoming weekend. It sounds utterly blissful. Sometimes ‘near-unpublishable’ = great and very publishable. Evan’s plan is to wait a bit until the postal situation becomes more dependable and then resend the package. He said if he can make pdfs of the books, he’ll email them to me. So, no, sadly ‘Circles’ seems to still be a ways off. Exciting that you’re working on a novel, not to mention that it feels new to you. Kind of the best feeling. Obviously, stick to it. I haven’t read the Brontes in years, but that makes total sense, and maybe I’ll try to pull them out. ‘The Devils’ is great. I haven’t read the Finbow yet. Nice reading list. Personally, and what do I know, but I would read a different Rhys. ‘Good Morning, Midnight’ and/or ‘Good Morning, Mr, McKenzie’, for instance. I like ‘WSS’, but I think it’s her weakest. Blah blah. Enjoy! ** Brian O’Connell, Hey there, Brian. ‘Breath of the Wild’ is incredible. I add that two-cents. Yes, such palpable relief re: the election. And mainly and primarily relief, yes. Biden’s basic decency is a good step, and Harris seems kind of potentially exciting, but there’ll be two+ horrid months ahead, no two ways about that. Oh, that’s why his name looked familiar. He did the Dahmer graphic novel, which I heard great things about but never read, or, I mean haven’t yet. Okay, very interesting. No, comics and graphic novels are a giant hole in my reading. I never read comic books when I was a kid. I was obsessed with edgy satirical magazines of that era like ‘Mad’, ‘Cracked’, ‘Sick’, ‘National Lampoon’, many of which had comics within them, but I was never drawn to comic books themselves, and I think that’s why I haven’t seemed to make the leap as an adult. When I do read them on rare occasions, I like the form a lot. Sounds like a nice weekend on your end, cool. I snuck off to hang out with a friend at an illegal distance from my abode for an illegal few hours, and Zoomed with an old friend, and followed the post-election stuff mostly. It was all right. I hope your tricky work days hold unexpected benefits. ** Armando, And good morning to you. Happy that my writers block thoughts helped. Mm, I don’t think ‘The Unnamable’ influenced my stuff in particular, certainly his stuff in general did. I don’t know ‘Victoria’, but I’ll hunt it. Today … Zoom with my oldest friend who I’ve known since 9th grade, get ready for a day train trip tomorrow to the city of Rennes to advise Gisele on her new theater piece, … The concierge is never here on the weekends, but I’m going to try to catch him today. My Halloween was pretty much a big fat zero, at least by my Halloween standards. I don’t even remember what I did. A luck filled day to you too. ** Okay. Today the blog concentrates on the films of the great Shirley Clarke, and I hope you will come away from it feeling like its beneficiaries. See you tomorrow.

Marilyn Roxie presents … The Inescapable Weirdness of Super Mario 64


Power Star

 

For many, Super Mario 64 was the first glimpse or experience of gameplay in a 3D environment. The beguiling pre-rendered promo art sparked my interest before I ever picked up an N64 controller: the game went to the top of my holiday wishlist in 1996.

My personal memories of playing Mario 64 are somehow like those about a physical location — or perhaps more like an uncanny dream of a place that never existed — than like memories about a game. As a kid, I spent time running around Mario 64 just for the fun and mystery of the game’s expansive environments, which ranged from snow to desert to under the sea, just as often as I acquired stars within courses and hidden throughout Princess Peach’s Castle.


Super Mario 64 (partially found Spaceworld ’95 demo of Nintendo 64 3D platformer; 1995)

 

Mario 64‘s popularity has endured through the years. People have returned to the game again and again, or discovered it for the first time, including in a new form on Nintendo DS with additional playable characters and features in 2004 and as part of a limited 35th anniversary release for Nintendo Switch in 2020. Additionally, the community of Mario 64 speedrunners angling for new world records has resulted in the discovery of glitches and techniques that enable progressing through the game in creative ways.

The persistently fun, occasionally clunky, and strange charm of Mario 64, hazy memories of childhood mystery, and the drive of passionate players to modify and manipulate the game in seemingly unlimited ways have ensured that rumors, videos purporting to contain lost footage, and more have been circulated around online. The dark and weird side of all this has perhaps reached its ultimate form in the shape of the Mario 64 Iceberg.

The iceberg illustrates, tongue-in-cheek, the deepening levels of galaxy-brained obsession and questioning that spending a little too much time in the grasp of Mario 64 and its unanswered questions can lead to. Here, I will spend some time on 10 intriguing items about the game. This will include a few iceberg offerings as well as other tidbits that piqued my interest, and plenty of links to go around should you wish to dive deeper.

 

Wet-Dry World’s “Negative Emotional Aura”

“Considered one of the most bizarre levels in the game because of its strange atmosphere, Wet-Dry World is commonly associated with negative feelings and anomalous sightings.”MIPS Hole SM64 Conspiracies

Wet-Dry World is a stage in the game that involves raising and lowering its water level strategically to access different areas divided into “Uptown” and “Downtown”, the latter of which is like an abandoned village in appearance. The lower or higher that you jump into the stage’s painting determines how high or low the water level will be when you arrive.

Skyboxes in video games form a background that helps to create the illusion of a more expansive world. The skyboxes of the courses in the Nintendo 64 original are a little uncanny to begin with, but there is something even more off about Wet-Dry World’s skybox.

This could be because Wet-Dry World’s skybox, shown at the bottom left in the collection of them above, contains an edited photograph of Casares, Spain that looks rather out of place in Mario 64. It is no surprise that this curious image ended up on the massively popular Twitter account Images with Elegiac Auras (“Images with haunting, unexplainable auras.”).

Wet-Dry World also includes doors that cannot be opened, which happen to share textures with those used in The Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time. In the massive 2020 leak of Mario 64 beta content, it was confirmed that an early version of Wet-Dry World did indeed share assets from an early Ocarina of Time town.

Lastly, one my personal favorite pieces of recently released “beta” material has been this alternative soundtrack interpretation:

 

Luigi / “L is Real 2401”

One of the best-known Mario 64 rumors concerns the idea that Mario’s brother Luigi can be unlocked as a playable character. The star statue in the castle courtyard, with illegible writing beneath it, has helped fuel this rumor, as many have interpreted this text as a coded message: ‘L is Real 2401’. A supposed letter from Nintendo of America clarifies that it has “no meaning”. Nonetheless, over the years there have been countless elaborate rumors about “how to unlock Luigi” include specific instructions on what order to get the stars in, playing the game without saving, and jumping into the volcano in Lethal Lava Land.


One of many fake screenshots circulated over the years.

 

It was confirmed that Luigi was originally intended to be in the game:

Yoshiaki Koizumi (Assistant Director of Super Mario 64): When we made the first prototype, Mario and Luigi were on a flat field…We ran it that way, but when we made the landforms, because of hardware limitations we had a choice between cutting Luigi or making more elaborate landforms. Then, in tears, we had to ask Luigi to leave. (Iwata Asks)


A kind of satisfaction was achieved at last in the July 25th 2020 leak, which included parts and color palettes for a Luigi model with different proportions from Mario.

 

Super Mario 64 DS


(bLUWOOOL on Twitter)

 

Super Mario 64 DS is the Mario 64 experience with a few additional bells and whistles, such as being able to play as other characters. Not Waluigi, though.

The white room mentioned above refers to a DS-specific secret star you can only get as Luigi after becoming invisible, walking through a mirror, entering the reflection of the door you originally came through, and entering into a white void.

I would add more, but…there is something about Mario 64 DS that makes it actually almost too weird for me to play. Perhaps I will summon the courage to reach for it next time I am in the mood to re-enter the world of Mario 64.

 

Camera Strangeness


Super Mario 64 introduced the camera as a friend and foe in video games

 

Throughout your Mario 64 journey, you are being filmed by one of the Lakitu Bros. Recalling the framing device of Super Mario Bros. 3 as a stage play with curtains, Mario being filmed as part of a live television broadcast is part of the game’s story from the very beginning.

Many Nintendo 64 players will be familiar with the trials and tribulations of early 3D gaming and finicky camera controls. A wrong turn when trying to perform a difficult wall-jump, perhaps, could send you into the abyss as the perspective swerved to a wall rather than to Mario.


(Supper Mario Broth)

 

Unused / Beta Assets


Early, harrowing penguin renders used on a Kellogg’s cereal box

 

Though touched on in other areas so far, the number of unused assets and (actual) beta differences in general is worth a special mention. The Cutting Room Floor contains a great run-down of these assets, including entirely different enemies, textures, and sounds.

The artist mushbuh has created a delightful hi-res interpretation of the beta enemy Motos (uncovered in the 2020 beta leak):

 

Super Mario 64: Chaos Edition

Chaos Edition is a romhack that activates / deactivates codes that modify how the game functions. All kinds of surprising effects can occur, including being chased by game assets, Mario’s head spinning through his body, growing unexpectedly larger, and starting a course embodying a sign-post instead of Mario’s body.

 

Super Mario 64 Theme Park Lost to Time – Reino Aventura, Mexico

I was pleasantly surprised to see a video had been made dedicated to an explanation of this strange theme park I had, up to then, only seen in pixelated, hazy photos circulating on social media that I initially presumed to be fake.

 

Parallel Universes

“A Parallel Universe, or PU, is an area in a Super Mario 64 map at which the game creates phantom collision for objects “outside” of the level. This is because some of the values for collision detection are truncated into the range of the real map’s coordinate system, allowing some space that is intended to be Out of Bounds to become habitable.” – Unofficial Pannen Wiki

If you ever want to end up utterly enmeshed in the programming and mathematics of how Super Mario 64 works, and see some baffling tricks, you must visit pannenkoek2012’s channel. I can’t promise that you’ll immediately understand everything you hear, but it is fascinating.

 

Endless Stairs

If you haven’t acquired quite enough stars to reach the final boss behind the Big Star Door, you’ll end up getting stuck on an infinite staircase. The effect is caused by Mario warping backwards repeatedly.

“The music which plays while climbing the endless stairs is a Shepard tone, a sequence of notes which are made to sound as if they are infinitely ascending in tone when in fact they are looping.”Mario Wiki

 

“Every Copy of Mario 64 is Personalized” / 1995/07/29 Beta Mario 64 Build

Every Copy of Mario 64 is Personalized is relatively new on the block when it comes to Mario rumors. Part meme, part creepypasta, and part nostalgic indulgence in the conventions of a bygone era, it has captured the attention and creativity of the fan community.

Inspiration for the concept originated in the appearance of a “Wario apparition” voiced by Mario’s voice actor, Charles Martinet, at video game trade event E3 in 1996. Snowballing from the apparition as “a ghost that manifests itself in select copies of Super Mario 64, and will eventually manifest itself in the real world,” to “the belief that every copy created of Super Mario 64 differed from each other at release date” based on an advanced AI that adapts to the player, the idea has spawned a collection of videos and images purporting to contain beta footage from commercials and gameplay.

A compliment to these theories, and returning to ideas touched on earlier regarding Wet-Dry World, are the experience and presentation of liminal spaces and the concept of backrooms. The articulation of these spaces, and what they mean, does well to capture what the landscape and gameplay of Mario 64 has symbolized to so many of us.


(Images with Elegiac Auras)

 

“I know for me, when I was younger I always had this nauseating urge to just explore the rest of the world of the video games I played. The rational part of me knew there was nothing, but still I was drawn to areas I couldn’t normally reach, and I would stare at static skyboxes forever, just wondering what was out there. I get a similar feeling as an adult when I view these liminal images. I’ve seen posts about the uncanny settings of the Mario 64 backgrounds, and I think it’s because everything is so unexplained. Where am I? What are these huge sprawling wastelands of nothing completely surrounding the level? What else is out there?” – u/Starman926 in r/LiminalSpace


(The Internal Plexus)

 

 

*

p.s. Hey. If you’re me, and you’re not me obviously, but if you’re either like me in some fundamental way or not like me at all except for at least one shared hot spot, you’re excited by this dazzling weekend post guest-hosted by the wonderful artist, creative whirlwind, and long time friend of DC’s Marilyn Roxie, a post that not coincidentally marks the occasion of the recent upgrade/relaunch of ‘Mario 64’ on Switch. There are all kinds of cool twists and turns and behind the scenes peeks up there, and please enjoy foraging. And, as ever, any words you can spare for your host Marilyn Roxie would be both proper and very welcome. Thanks so much, Marilyn! ** _Black_Acrylic, Hi, Ben. Yep. How did the outdoors treat you? And ace about the Flash Fiction course! And whoo-hoo and beyond about the new Play Therapy add! Everyone, If you’re not already an anticipation-filled addict of Ben ‘_Black_Acrylic’ Robinson’s astute and partying podcast/show Play Therapy and its action affirming mix of ‘Acid House, Electro, New Wave, Coldwave and a deluge of other oddities’, you can join the gang because the new episode is very live. ** Dominik, Hi, D!! Yeah, my laptop may not be perfect, but it’s being fully cooperative again so far. I’m pretty good. Nothing hugely new apart from the return of my online life. Great, great that the videochat went so well! Oh, wow, weeks, that is a lengthy set up time, but still! You’re happy! Congrats, pal. Oh, did you do anything for Halloween? Did you end up hitting that slightly scary seeming haunted house if it even ended up happening? It’s not official, but Biden has basically won the election. It’s just about how long that truth will take to become factual because Trump, massively predictably, is reacting like an insane, sadistic baby. How strange! Or not? I just read a big piece about Hudinilson Jr. yesterday and made a note to investigate and try to make a blog post about him. So that’s cool. Love like the boy who homemade my all-time favorite music video. ** David Ehrenstein, Thank you! Love that Nilsson (song). And, as always, you gotta hand it to the French. ** dadoodoflow, Hey! Super awesome to see you! And to know I succeeded! It’s like Xmas! xo ** Steve Erickson, Hi. Yes, and, even though the fix-it shop didn’t quite fix everything this poorly laptop needs, it’s working like a relative charm. And yes, I had to search through hoops to find that Brazzers video, for better or worse. ** Armando, Hi. Yeah, well, it’s a not that harsh a quarantine at the moment, but the strong rumor is it’s going to get quite harsh very soon. Hm, I like everything about Robbe-Grillet’s oeuvre. I don’t think I can isolate one particular quality about it that I like best. ‘The Unnamable’ is great, I agree. One of my favorite favorite Beckett’s, for sure. Thanks about the post. And thank you very much about ‘PGL’, of course. For me, writers block is only ever about being overcome with insecurity. Or it was until I figured that out and just let myself write whatever the fuck I could, not worrying if it was good or bad, knowing that I can edit/fix it later when I’m feeling less insecure. So, yeah, I say just write and don’t care if it seems good enough to you at the moment because, if you’re blocked, you’re not a good judge. ** Brian O’Connell, Hi, Brian. It was a little tricky in the sense that I had to travel an illegal, i.e. beyond 1 km distance from my abode to find an open shop. Super glad you liked a lot of the post’s wares. Cool. Yeah, it’s in the bag. Biden’s win, I mean. But, exactly, how much shit will Trump’s narcissism freakout will cause until it’s a fait accompli is the big stress point now. Could he even be a more vile, horrible piece of garbage? Answer: no. Me too: I’ve been living and breathing the election results every waking minute since Wednesday. But starting today I’m going to retry the rest of the world. Derf Backderf: what a name. I was pretty young when Kent State happened, but I remember the news and effect, for sure. Interesting: the book. It’s really good? Really, it pretty much was just the US election and missing my laptop and catching up on emails for those few days. But this weekend holds some kind of promise anyway, I’m not sure what since everything is closed, but … You have cool plans, or, did you and did they come fully about? Have a great couple of ones. ** Bill, Hey. Ha ha, yeah, the Shauna Born … as excessive as it was, I felt like I had to post every single one of her drawings to make her point. I read something about ‘The Eyes of My Mother’, but I can’t remember what. I’ll see if it’s lodged on one of my ‘illegal’ sites. Thanks, bud. ** Right. Enjoy your weekend with Mario and Marilyn! See you on Monday.

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