‘Don’t you realize you cannot destroy that which does not wish to perish?’
The Undertaker made his debut as a surprise member of Ted DiBiase’s Survivor Series Team at Survivor Series 1990. Despite rumors, he was not introduced as Kane the Undertaker. He was originally managed by Brother Love but a few months later Paul Bearer became his manager. In his first year in the WWF, he feuded with Randy Savage, the Ultimate Warrior, and Hulk Hogan. At Survivor Series 1991, the Undertaker won his first WWE Championship by beating Hulk Hogan.
Announcement of the 1992 Royal Rumble Match
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‘The virtue of all-in wrestling is that it is the spectacle of excess. Here we find a grandiloquence which must have been that of ancient theatres. And in fact wrestling is an open-air spectacle, for what makes the circus or the arena what they are is not the sky (a romantic value suited rather to fashionable occasions), it is the drenching and vertical quality of the flood of light. Even hidden in the most squalid Parisian halls, wrestling partakes of the nature of the great solar spectacles, Greek drama and bullfights: in both, a light without shadow generates an emotion without reserve.’
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‘For when you look into the eyes of the Reaper, you will know your time has come.’
In the spring of 1991, Jake Roberts tried to hit Miss Elizabeth with a chair but the Undertaker stopped him. The Undertaker remained a fan favorite for the next seven years. During that era, he fought monsters like Yokozuna, Kamala, and even a fake version of himself. In 1996, Paul Bearer turned on him. When Undertaker regained the WWF title in 1997, Paul Bearer threatened him with a secret from his past. The secret was that Undertaker started a fire that killed his parents and badly burned his brother, Kane.
The Undertaker shows his evil side to Kane
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‘The public knows very well the distinction between wrestling and boxing; it knows that boxing is a Jansenist sport, based on a demonstration of excellence. One can bet on the outcome of a boxing-match: with wrestling, it wold make no sense. A boxing-match is a story which is constructed before the eyes of the spectator; in wrestling, on the contrary, it is each moment which is intelligible, not the passage of time. The spectator is not interested in the rise and fall of fortunes; he expects the transient image of certain passions. Wrestling therefore demands an immediate reading of the juxtaposed meanings, so that there is no need to connect them. The logical conclusion of the contest does not interest the wrestling-fan, while on the contrary a boxing-match always implies a science of the future. In other words, wrestling is a sum of spectacles, of which no single one is a function: each moment imposes the total knowledge of a passion which rises erect and alone, without ever extending to the crowning moment of a result.’
____________
‘I like to bleed, it turns me on.’
While the Undertaker was fighting Shawn Michaels in the first-ever Hell in a Cell Match, Kane made his debut and cost his brother the match. Undertaker refused to fight his brother until Kane locked him in a coffin and set him on fire. The two men fought for the first time at WrestleMania XIV. Over the years the men have feuded and befriended each other on countless occasions.
The Undertaker and Kane set William Regal’s office on fire
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‘Each sign in wrestling is therefore endowed with an absolute clarity, since one must always understand everything on the spot. As soon as the adversaries are in the ring, the public is overwhelmed with the obviousness of the roles. As in the theatre, each physical type expresses to excess the part which has been assigned to the contestant. Thauvin, a fifty-year-old with an obese and sagging body, whose type of asexual hideousness always inspires feminine nicknames, displays in his flesh the characters of baseness, for his part is to represent what, in the classical concept of the salaud, the ‘bastard’ (the key-concept of any wrestling-match), appears as organically repugnant. The nausea voluntarily provoked by Thauvin shows therefore a very extended use of signs: not only is ugliness used here in order to signify baseness, but in addition ugliness is wholly gathered into a particularly repulsive quality of matter: the pallid collapse of dead flesh (the public calls Thauvin la barbaque, ‘stinking meat’), so that the passionate condemnation of the crowd no longer stems from its judgment, but instead from the very depth of its humours. It will thereafter let itself be frenetically embroiled in an idea of Thauvin which will conform entirely with this physical origin: his actions will perfectly correspond to the essential viscosity of his personage.’
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‘There will be no mercy, only slain bodies and taken souls.’
After being a good guy for several years, the Undertaker became a cult leader and started sacrificing wrestlers on his symbol to satisfy the higher power. The person that he went after was Steve Austin and the WWF Championship. At the same time, Undertaker kidnapped Stephanie McMahon and tried to force her to marry him in a dark marriage. It was later revealed that the higher power was Vince McMahon.
The Ministry of Darkness vs. The Corporation
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‘It is obvious that at such a pitch, it no longer matters whether the passion is genuine or not. What the public wants is the image of passion, not passion itself. There is no more a problem of truth in wrestling than in the theatre. In both, what is expected is the intelligible representation of moral situations which are usually private.’
____________
‘You know my name, as the LORD of DARKNESS.’
The Undertaker had another transformation a few years later. By 2001, he was a motorcycle rider and had cut his hair. He carried on with this gimmick for a few years. His biggest feud during this era was with Brock Lesnar. At Survivor Series 2003, Vince McMahon beat Undertaker in a Buried Alive match when Kane turned on his brother once again. When he returned at WrestleMania XX, he came back with his “dead man“ gimmick and reunited with Paul Bearer.
25 Years of the Undertaker Montage
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‘But what wrestling is above all meant to portray is a purely moral concept: that of justice. The idea of ‘paying’ is essential to wrestling, and the crowd’s ‘Give it to him’ means above all else ‘Make him pay.’ This is therefore, needless to say, an immanent justice. The baser the action of the ‘bastard,’ the more delighted the public is by the blow which he justly receives in return. If the villain – who is of course a coward – takes refuge behind the ropes, claiming unfairly to have a right to do so by a brazen mimicry, he is inexorably pursued there and caught, and the crowd is jubilant at seeing the rules broken for the sake of a deserved punishment. [. . .] Naturally, it is the pattern of Justice which matters here, much more than its content: wrestling is above all a quantitative sequence of compensations (an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth). This explains why sudden changes of circumstances have in the eyes of wrestling habitueés a sort of moral beauty; they enjoy them as they would enjoy an inspired episode in a novel.’
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‘Until nothing do us part.’
The reunification with Paul Bearer did not last long. Undertaker saw his friendship with him could be exploited as a weakness. Paul was kidnapped and trapped in a concrete crypt. Instead of saving Paul when he had a chance, he decided to bury his manager alive. Despite this vile action, wrestling fans still cheered him. In 2005, he had a bloody series of battles with Randy Orton.
The Undertaker attacks Paul Bearer
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‘Wrestlers, who are very experienced, know perfectly how to direct the spontaneous episodes of the fight so as to make them conform to the image which the public has of the great legendary themes of its mythology. A wrestler can irritate or disgust, he never disappoints, for he always accomplishes completely, by a progressive solidification of signs, what the public expects of him. In wrestling, nothing exists except in the absolute, there is no symbol, no allusion, everything is presented exhaustively. Leaving nothing in the shade, each action discards all parasitic meanings and ceremonially offers to the public a pure and full signification, rounded like Nature. This grandiloquence is nothing but the popular and age-old image of the perfect intelligibility of reality. What is portrayed by wrestling is therefore an ideal understanding of things; it is the euphoria of men raised for a while above the constitutive ambiguity of everyday situations and placed before the panoramic view of a universal Nature, in which signs at last correspond to causes, without obstacle, without evasion, without contradiction.’
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‘I may not dress like Satan anymore, but I’m still down with the Devil, and I will go medieval on your ass.’
In 2007, the Undertaker won the Royal Rumble for the first time. That victory gave him the opportunity to battle Batista for the World Heavyweight Championship at WrestleMania 23. Of all the records that Undertaker has, the most prestigious is his undefeated WrestleMania record. Undertaker won that match to claim his first World Heavyweight Championship.
FULL MATCH – Undertaker vs. Undertaker: SummerSlam 1994
*
p.s. Hey. ** Dominik, Hi, D! Strangely they didn’t end up announcing the new restrictions yesterday after all. I don’t know if that’s a good or bad sign. I’ll see if flixtor.to is available here. I’ve never tried it. Thanks! Hope your laptop arrives ASAP, or has it? Is the course a Zoom class-type thing or a sending instructions/ results back and forth one-on-one type of thing? Yesterday Zac and I met with Gisele. We’re turning the doomed TV project into a possible feature film. Zac and I had rewritten/ consolidated/ changed the original script into a film script, and we were waiting to see if Gisele, who would direct the film, liked it, and she loves it, so now she’ll try to get a producer on board to help her make the film. So that’s what we met about. It’s nice to feel excited about that project again and have it under our total control after years of nothing but hellishness trying to please ARTE. Today I’m going to show my friend OB De Alessi the gallery show where my gif works are and then talk with her about her new film. She sent me a rough cut, and it’s great, so I look forward to all of that. Did today surprise you at all and how? Or, if not, was its expectedness a goodie? I saw France’s biggest twink porn star Jerome James on the metro yesterday and his 3 dimensionality was not a disappointment love, Dennis. ** Corey Heiferman, Hi, Corey. Cool. About the post, etc. Frans Brüggen, no, I haven’t. I haven’t had a single experience or even thought about recorder playing since I ceased playing one in my teens. Our recorder consort, ‘Tag Rag’, consisted of my late boyfriend, me, and a high school friend (can’t remember her name). We mostly formed to play at the local Renaissance Faire (my boyfriend was a ‘gentle hippie’ type into that kind of stuff even though he looked remarkably like the young Mick Jagger), and we did, and we were pretty terrible — even the gentle hippie crowd seemed to think so — and that was the end of that. Anyway, I’ll use those links to check out that dude’s stuff. Oh, you’re in the States! I was wondering how you were dealing with the lockdown, and you’re dealing with it by escaping. Good move. All best wishes for your dad. And of course for your test’s outcome. Can’t even imagine being in the States right now, yeah. A USA-shaped waking nightmare. My projects go well, I think. I just told Dominick about the film script thing. And things look very hopeful for Zac’s and my next film. And other stuff. Some theater stuff is starting up here again, and I think I’ll see my first on Monday. Gaspar Noe’s new film ‘Lux Aeterna’ opens net week, and Paul Hameline, who was one of our stars in ‘Like Cattle Towards Glow’ is in it, and I’m curious. And Le Manoir de Paris has just reopened to do a big Halloween haunted house attraction, and I’m probably most excited about that. Anything cool going on in your temporary neck of the ‘woods’? ** Bill, Very happy to hear that the air is transparent again. Marseille is very interesting. Definitely the most non-characteristic French city I’ve ever been in. It just got hit hard by new COVID restrictions, which doesn’t surprise me because, when we were there, the social distancing thing was really not happening at all. No, I don’t think I know R.W. Spryszak. Huh, very interesting. I’m on it. Thanks a lot, Bill. Did today pony up with anything both doable and loveable? ** Steve Erickson, Hi. I like the track too. Kudos. How interesting to have interviewed Haneke. Yeah, I read several interviews with him when I was making the post, and he did seem not into interpreting his stuff. I wish I had the gumption to do that when I’m interviewed sometimes, I must admit. The new McQueen sounds like it might incorporate some of the qualities that he normally puts into his video/ installation work. I really prefer his videos, so I’m curious to see that. ** politekid, Hi, pk! Ah, right, using COVID as a ‘golden’ excuse to downsize their shops, the bastards. In the States public opinion has about a three day lifespan, but you guys are smarter, I think, so … Well, I’ll keep my fingers crossed, but, yeah, I hear you. I just don’t see how academia could reject such an obviously stellar proposal, but I am so not an academic, although some of them like what I do, so perhaps my enthusiasm means something. Surely they’ll jump. Surely. It doesn’t seem totally implausible that one could travel to the UK from France by then. I don’t know what all the Brexit shenanigans will do. And at least you’ll hopefully get the work online. I think I’m anti-precious. Not anti-anal, but anti-precious, yes. Oh, in fact that Weymouth Timewalk does excite me. I am putty in the hands of themed attractions across the board pretty much. I’ll go tour the evidence of the thing. Thank you for that, big O. ** Sypha, Shorter than my short? Wow, respect. My upcoming one is very short. A little bigger than ‘Period’, but not by much. Fuck your readers’ presets. You’ll show them. You’ll expand them. End of story. ** Okay. Here’s a curious restored post from sometime long ago that I thought I would foist on you today. See you tomorrow.
‘The reputations of many documentary film-makers rest on their production of one or two ground-breaking pictures. But there are some, such as William Greaves, whose real achievements only become apparent when we look at the full accumu‚lation of their work. In Greaves’s case this was made possible by a recent retrospective of his films at the Brooklyn Museum. It included a screening of his never-released, unconventional, cinema‚verite-ish feature film Symbiopsychotaxiplasm: Take One (1968/1971), which is now being screened at festivals, art houses, and museums. Moreover, Greaves is still making innovative, rigorous films -as demonstrated by his documentary Ida B. Wells: A Passion for Justice (I989), a historical biography of the black feminist civil rights leader Ida Wells that recently aired on PBS’s “The American Experience” and that has won numerous prizes on the festival circuit.
‘Black independent film-maker Bill Greaves has played a significant if not always fully appreciated role in the creation of a new post-1968 era in U.S. documentary cinema-one that is characterized by greater cultural diversity among those making films. During the nineteen-fifties and early nine‚teen-sixties Greaves endured a protracted struggle to establish himself as a documentary film-maker of artistic integrity. By the mid-nineteen-sixties he finally began to produce films on subjects of particular importance to African Americans. In 1968, while continuing to further develop his own still limited film-making opportunities, Greaves began to assist a new generation of young black documentarians through the initial stages of their professional careers-film-makers such as Kent Garrett, Madeline Anderson, and St. Clair Bourne. Greaves was not only a harbinger of a new era of multicultural film-making but a pivotal figure in the history of African-American cinema.
‘Greaves, in addition to being an important historical force, has produced an impressive and surprisingly diverse body of work, both in ap‚proach and subject matter. This testifies, on one hand, to his inventiveness and broad range of interests and, on the other, to the numerous prac‚tical exigencies he has faced over several decades. Greaves has received much recognition for his work as executive producer and co-host of public television’s “Black Journal,” an Emmy-winning public-affairs series, and for his direction of such ground-breaking films as the historical documentary From These Roots (1974), which looks at Harlem during its cultural renaissance in the twen‚ties and early thirties. However, the broader course of Greaves’s career and the substantial contribution he has made to African-American film production-from acting in black-cast films during the nineteen-forties to serving as executive producer on Richard Pryor’s 1981 hit, Bustin’ Loose – are only now starting to receive adequate attention.
‘Even aside from the scores of films and tele‚vision programs that Greaves has produced, directed, edited, photographed, written, and/or appeared in, his career itself deserves attention for the way it traces many aspects of African-Ameri‚can involvement in (and exclusion from) motion picture, television, and related industries. He was born and raised in Harlem and educated at Stuy‚vesant High School. While enrolled as an engineer‚ing student at City College of New York during the early forties, Greaves used his skills as a social dancer to become a performer in African dance troupes. From there he moved into acting at the American Negro Theater and was soon working in radio, television, and film. Among the films he was featured in (and sometimes sang in) at this time were the whodunit Miracle in Harlem (1947), one of the most technically polished of black-cast films, and the Louis de Rochemont-produced Lost Boundaries (1948), a highly popular film based on a true story about a black doctor who set up a practice in a New England town while “passing” for white.’ The doctor and his family are played by white actors (in keeping with Hollywood conventions of the day), while Greaves portrays a debonair black college student who is completely comfortable with his African-American identity as he interacts with his white counterparts. It was an image seldom if ever seen in American films prior to that date. Greaves’s role here clearly prefigured many of those played by Sidney Poitier in the next decade, and one is apt to wonder whether Greaves would have become one of the crossover stars of the fifties had he remained in screen acting.
‘Greaves has constantly struggled against being stereotyped in his work-as an actor and as a filmmaker. His work has always displayed diversity: he has balanced his numerous documentaries with repeated forays back into fiction film-making, such as Bustin’ Loose (as executive producer, 1981) and the never-released, hurriedly made black exploitation feature The Marijuana Affair (1974). Furthermore, Greaves has alternated films on contemporary subjects and issues with historical treatments. Films focusing on African-American concerns are countered by numerous films preoccupied with other issues (i.e., Symbiopsychotaxiplasm: Take One); according to Greaves, roughly half his films have addressed topics other than the black experience. Industrials and government‚sponsored films that operate within circumscribed parameters are offset by films in which Greaves took large artistic or financial risks.
‘In many respects Greaves has adapted what is most positive and progressive in Grierson’s writings regarding the possibilities of and need for nonfiction films that can inform and educate the public. His approach has differed from that of many leftist or art-oriented documentarians – Barbara Kopple being one example of the former and Errol Morris an instance of the latter – in that his conception of film-making avoids fetishizing the individual work and instead looks to each work as one instance in a larger struggle. It takes a pragmatic rather than a romantic approach, one that has its roots in the black filmmaking experience – in the race films of Oscar Micheaux, Spencer Williams, and William Alexander, which were typically made under remarkable financial constraints. Yet if Greaves’s career, like that of Melvin Van Peebles, resonates with this legacy, it has done so within an entirely new social and cultural framework. This framework, characterized by the end of legally sanctioned segregation (though not of racial discrimination) and by the dominance of television, has altered the very terms of black film-=making.
‘Like those leaders that are the subject of some of his films, Greaves has had insight into the changing realities of his time, has persisted, and, often enough, has triumphed. An examination of the career of William Greaves suggests that we need to rethink our conception and periodization of documentary film practice, which has typically been divided into two eras – the one before the cinima-viriti revolution of 1960 (e.g., Primary, Chronicle of a Summer) and the one after. There are other turning points of equal or perhaps even greater importance, not all having to do with technology. The year 1968 can be seen as a watershed, a moment when access to the means of production and distribution began to be more open; not only “Black Journal” but “Inside Bedford Stuyvesant” and “Like It Is” also began to air in that year. These and other initiatives – such as Newsreel, Third World Newsreel, and New Day Films – began to chip away at white male hegemony in documentary film-making. Today, documentarians come from much more diverse backgrounds in terms of race, gender, and publicly acknowledged sexual orientation. Although problems of discrimination and social democracy have not been fully overcome even in this limited area, the manner in which these substantial changes have occurred needs to be better understood. Such historical reconsiderations are particularly urgent at a moment when many ideologues have launched gross polemics against multiculturalism, “political correctness,” and arts funding-seemingly to taint if not obliterate our memory of these achievements.’ — Adam Knee and Charles Musser
___ Interview: William Greaves on Symbiopsychotaxiplasm
Robert Chilcott: Your film has been categorised as experimental, or avant-garde, but it’s not really…
William Greaves: It is and it isn’t. It’s a series of paradoxes. There is no creative predecessor of this film. It has a multiple set of aesthetics, which draw on different concepts – improvisation, cinema vérité, traditional Hollywood film styles. It’s a collage, a smorgasbord, a series of metaphors, like jazz, or like how a lot of music is developed. In other words, you can’t pigeonhole this film, which is partly my intention anyway.
RC: In the 1968 version they have a very serious debate where everyone is academicising, though this is much less so in the present day version, where there is more of a technical discussion. Do you think that kind of passionate semiotic analysis has been somehow lost today?
WG: In Take 2½ there isn’t that kind of confrontation. Take One has a lot of conflict in it. Take 2½ was just an attempt to allow whatever was going to happen to happen, without them trying to find out what my motives are. There’s still a lot of confusion, a degree of chaos, because they’re all intelligent people trying to rationalise some clarity of why the film is being done, but there wasn’t any conflict in relation to me as authority that they were challenging, as there was in Take One. In 1968, everything was being questioned – civil rights, woman’s issues – so it was a metaphor for America during that whole period, particularly the war in Vietnam, and the anger of American youth. In Take 2½ there hasn’t been that kind of dissent, although after we made the film it was beginning. Take 2½ reflects the passivity of the crew. The actors also did not challenge me in front of the camera, as they had done in Take One.
RC: How did Soderbergh and Steve Buscemi get involved?
WG: Steve Buscemi was at Sundance. We had the screening, and the projection failed. The theatre went black, so I had to announce to the audience that it was not a part of the film, even though the film was somewhat unorthodox! Steve was in the audience – we became friends, and he said he would try to help the film. He wanted to be a part of it in some way, and so I invited him to be co-executive producer with Steven Soderbergh, who was putting up the funds for me to finish Take 2 with these two actors. We had done the Symbiopsychotaxiplasm series – take 1, take 2, take 3, take 4, take 5 – each time with a different pair of actors. Shannon and Audrey were the actors for take 2. Soderbergh wanted to know more about take 2, so I decided to use the first part of take 2 with these two actors, then, some thirty years later – what developments had taken place in their lives in the intervening years, both from the standpoint of the fictional situation as well as themselves as actors. So I mixed those two levels of reality that ran concurrently, then when we came to the moment of climax, the psychodramatic component, again it’s like a smorgasbord, a jazz combo, a riff, a spontaneous moment. I wanted to yield to any wild idea I got through the process of shooting the film. At one point the scene on the bridge with the two actors, I saw Marsha with these sunglasses on, watching from afar, and I thought she looked like some supernatural being come down to earth to look at this cosmic event – what can I do to use her in this scene to mediate this conflict between the two actors. I gave in to that intuition – it would play very interestingly in the film, so I had them walking up these stairs, which in my mind was going up to another level of reality, and when they got up there she explained, in psychodramatic terms, what she was going to do to deal with the basic conflict that was developing in the screen test. What happened then was invariably you find the psychodramatic event, the relationship of the individual to some moment of karma, and they utilise their own spontaneity.
The psychodrama process is much more profound, much more immediate – it quickly moves the individual into this area of empathy, and what you get is a terrific performance. It’s like cinema vérité, not like conventional Hollywood shooting where you can do the scene again – it’s a one time event, which if it happens you have to be there to catch it, there’s no second take. Because the actors are very skilled actors, they collaborated on this moment, using the psychodramatic components, mixed with the method, and it worked very well. What happened then, of course, is that people who are in the audience become somewhat confused – are they acting? Is this true? My feeling is that it’s a very rich, human moment.
RC: Do you think a lot of actors resist that kind of non-acting, because when they finally see it they go “but I wasn’t acting!” and they want to be able to justify the acting craft?
WG: Yes, but it’s also an eye opener for the actor because they discover there are more emotions and richness in their real life than they realise. They cannot predict that they will find that level of emotion, but to be exposed to it, to become part of it. I think these two actors have become somewhat changed, discovering feelings they did not know were available to them, in front of a camera. A camera is a very intrusive element that tends to make people nervous. Like the Heisenberg principle of uncertainty, the means of perceiving often destroys the thing that’s being perceived. In other words the camera is focussed on the actors, and the actors become distracted from the basic circumstances they are supposed to be involved in, with the intrusiveness of the camera. You realise the camera investigates the psyche, the soul of the actor, in a way that makes the actor extremely self conscious. So the means of observing, as with Heisenberg, the electron microscope destroys the atom, so you never know what reality ultimately is.
_______________ 12 of William Greaves’ 18 films
_______________ Emergency Ward (1959) ‘Stylistically, Emergency Ward falls somewhere between the “Free Cinema” of Lindsay Anderson’s Every Day Except Christmas (1957), with its carefully prepared set-ups and tripod-dependent shooting style, and the cinema-verite style of Lonely Boy (1961), by Roman Kroiter and Wolf Koenig. (Not uncoincidentally, Koenig served as Greaves’s cameraman on the film.) Emergency Ward was shot over the course of many nights and exposes us to the range of people admitted to the hospital: accident victims, people with imagined illness, people abandoned by their families, and others who are just plain lonely. Grierson’s influence on Greaves is evident in this film: Greaves humanizes his subjects and reassures the viewer that the emergency ward at this institution is run as responsibly and as well as the post office in Night Mail. The doctors know their jobs and care; orderlies and nurses are ennobled. At the same time, this film might be seen as a forerunner of Frederick Wiseman’s Hospital (1968), for instance in its visual sensitivity to character quirks, although it ultimately lacks Wiseman’s aggressiveness and sense of style.’ — Adam Knee
the entirety
______________ Wealth of a Nation (1966) ‘This film created by the U.S. Information Agency explores freedom of speech in the United States. The original description is that it “illustrates that freedom of thought and expression, including violent dissent, is a source of national strength in U.S. politics, education and the arts.” It was created by William Greaves, a prominent African-American filmmaker and producer from the 1960s-2000s. His career led him everywhere from the National Film Board of Canada, to Africa, to India and around the world. One of his jobs was with the U.S. Information Agency (USIA). The USIA’s primary goal was to promote understanding, “inform, and influence foreign publics in promotion of the U.S. national interest, and to broaden the dialogue between Americans and U.S. institutions and their counterparts abroad.”’— DOCS Teach
the entirety
______________ Still A Brother: Inside the Negro Middle Class (1968) ‘A TV production by African-American documentarian William Greaves, Still a Brother deals with the conflicts of the Black middle class against the backdrop of the political revolution of the 1960s. Narrated by legendary writer/director/activist Ossie Davis, this was the first Black-produced doc to ever receive an Emmy nation, and deals particularly with the question of whether to align oneself with members of your race regardless of class status, or whether to emulate white standards in order to rise in the limited areas permitted by society. Speakers include Dr. Percy Julian, Julian Bond, St. Clair Drake, among others. An important, rarely screened work by one of the true greats.’— Black Film Centre, Indiana University
Excerpt
______________ Symbiopsychotaxiplasm Take One (1968) ‘In his one-of-a-kind fiction/documentary hybrid Symbiopsychotaxiplasm Take One, director William Greaves presides over a beleaguered film crew in New York’s Central Park, leaving them to try to figure out what kind of movie they’re making. A couple enacts a break-up scenario over and over, a documentary crew films a crew filming the crew, locals wander casually into the frame: the project defies easy description. Yet this wildly innovative sixties counterculture landmark remains one of the most tightly focused and insightful movies ever made about making movies.’— The Criterion Collection
______________ The Voice of La Raza (1972) ‘Produced by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, this film traces the ongoing struggle for equality by the Spanish-speaking residents of the United States. Through a fictitious scenario and real discussions with a range of individuals, including local business leaders, parents, and student activists, the film explores job discrimination and the resulting hardships within the Hispanic community. Many of the interviews are conducted by actor Anthony Quinn, who relates his own family’s struggles as Mexican immigrants in East Los Angeles.’ — Texas Archive
______________ The Fight (1974) ‘In 1971, maverick filmmaker William Greaves trained his cameras on both Muhammad Ali and his opponent, Joe Frazier, ahead of the “Fight of the Century” at New York’s Madison Square Garden. The epic battle was supposed to be Ali’s big comeback following the suspension of his boxing license in 1967. In addition to the media circus surrounding both combatants, Greaves shot the match in its entirety from a dizzying array of camera angles, making the director’s cut of The Fight both an invaluable historical document as well as a virtuosic piece of filmmaking.’— African American Film Fest
Trailer
_____________ From These Roots (1974) ‘Explores the extraordinary artistic, cultural and political flowering that took place in Harlem during the “Roaring 20s.” This vivid portrait of the “Harlem Renaissance” is created entirely with period photographs.’— letterboxd
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w/ Rick Baxter Ali the Fighter (1974) ‘Ali the Fighter was made in 1975, when the Muhammad Ali-Joe Frazier fight was still fresh in everyone’s memory banks. Thus, a generous portion of the documentary’s running time is given over to graphic footage of that famous bout. Filmmaker William Greaves frames these scenes with a fine thumbnail sketch of Ali’s rise to glory, beginning with his “Cassius Clay” days back in Louisville. Fortunately, the film was made long before Ali’s profound physical and mental debilitations.‘ — alibris
the entirety
_____________ That’s Black Entertainment (1989) ‘Semi-interesting documentary that covers black filmmakers from the 1910s through the 1950s. It’s too bad this film spends so much time bashing Hollywood’s era of blacks on screen instead of talking about the black producers of the day. Several rare film clips are shown of these films so you’ll want to keep your pen ready to write down some of the titles. I really hope someone like Kino or Criterion will release some of these important films, which aren’t discussed anymore. Even though this documentary is interesting, it would also be great for a film historian to go back, in greater detail, and tell the story of these filmmakers.’— Michael_Elliott
the entirety
______________ Ralph Bunche: An American Odyssey (2001) ‘William Greaves chronicles the life and times of the world-renowned African American United Nations statesman, who not only pioneered the organization’s peacekeeping and conflict resolution strategies, but was also one of the leading advocates of the UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The first person of color to win a Noble Peace Price, Ralph Bunche became a symbol of racial progress throughout the world in a time when black Americans were marginalized in a largely segregated America. This superb film offers a rich and largely neglected perspective on twentieth-century American intellectual and political history.’— full frame
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______________ Symbiopsychotaxiplasm: Take 2 ½ (2005) ‘A movie about making movies about making movies. In 1968, William Greaves shot several pairs of actors in a scene in which a woman confronts her husband and ends their relationship. In “Take 2 1/2,” Greaves starts with 1968 takes of one of these pairs of actors plus footage of the crew discussing the film’s progress. Then, 35 years later, Greaves brings back to Central Park those actors and some of the original crew (plus others) to film a reunion of the characters Alice and Freddie. We watch scenes of these characters and discussions among the actors and crew. Greaves explores and dramatizes the dialectic in the creative process.’— trakt.tv
______________ Nationtime – Gary (2020) ‘Nationtime – Gary is the long-lost film that William Greaves made about the National Black Political Convention of 1972, when 10,000 black politicians, activists and artists went to Gary, Indiana, to forge a national unity platform in advance of the Republican and Democratic presidential conventions. The delegates included the entire range of political thinkers — Black Panther co-founder Bobby Seale, Pan-Africanist Amiri Baraka, PUSH founder Jesse Jackson, elected officials Ron Dellums, Charles Diggs, Walter Fauntroy, Richard Hatcher, Carl McCall, plus key women in the fight for racial equality — Coretta Scott King, Betty Shabazz, Fannie Lou Hamer and Queen Mother Moore (who was arguing for reparations). Entertainers Harry Belafonte, Dick Gregory, Isaac Hayes and Richard Roundtree lent their star quality and entertained the crowds. Sidney Poitier narrated the film.
‘One of the most powerful films Greaves ever made, this is the director’s original 90-minute version that was never released. Found in a Pittsburgh warehouse in 2018, the 48-year-old film was painstakingly restored by IndieCollect under the supervision of Louise Greaves, the director’s widow and filmmaking partner. It re-emerges at a time when the Black Lives Matter movement is galvanizing support across the nation. As we head into the presidential conventions of 2020, Nationtime is a must-see for all who care about ending racist attitudes and practices in this country, once and for all.’— Lightbox Film Center
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p.s. Hey. ** David Ehrenstein, I’m kind of glad I found that book late after the hubbub about it was over. Gisele was close with him and always said he was a dear guy. I met him once, and he was very friendly. And he nominated ‘God Jr.’ for the Prix Goncourt, which is definitely one of my life’s highlights. Speaking of Trintignant, I just yesterday realised I’ve never dome a Haneke Day for some unknown reason, so I made one. Everyone, If you’re trying to reach Mr. Ehrenstein re: his sale or other reasons, his email is acting weird, so hit him up instead via [email protected]. ** Dominik, Hi, D! It was a seminal book for me, but what he was saying was exactly what I needed to read at the time I found it. Thanks about my toe. It’s being a total bastard. Today they will impose the new restrictions for Paris, so we’ll see what that means later on, and fingers crossed. Cool, will do about ‘Des’. I just need to find out how to get to it in France, above board or underground. What’s on your day’s agenda? Ha ha. Spotting Richie Manic at your local cafe love, Dennis. ** Tosh Berman, Hi, T. That’s what I also hear from my other LA sources. Good god. So sorry about the family death, and that she’s away, and that you’re not there. I dream of waking up in Tokyo almost daily. Or daydream. The new Kaufman should be under my belt this week, if the powers-that-be don’t shut down our theatres today. I haven’t read the new Alex Ross, but I really like his thinking/writing, so I’ll seek it. Hm, interesting question about R-G vis-a-vis Wagner. I’ll try to remember to ask Catherine R-G the next time I see her. Hang in there big time, Tosh. I hope you’re using your sequestering to work on your new book. ** Sypha, Hi, J. Well, if you’re making such progress on your new collection, the weirdness is sliver lined at least. Of course I love the length of the collection. DC-ish length. ** Misanthrope, Hi. Oh, is that true about the dick sizes? Interesting. Yeah, maybe small dicks are in vogue. I suppose I do tend to pick escorts whose dicks aren’t the main draw. Apart from Kayla getting sick, that birthday sounds pretty exciting. Is she right as rain again? Great about the guitar purchases. Hey, I didn’t start making films until I was in my 60s, so I wouldn’t sweat the late start. Strange you say that about my recorder because I actually have a recorder here with me in Paris, albeit for sad reasons. When I was in LA one time showing ‘PGL’, the brother of my first serious boyfriend Robert came to the screening. I hadn’t seen him since the 70s. Robert died of AIDS in the 80s, and his brother told me that one of Robert’s last wishes was to give me his old recorder. (Robert and I were in a ‘recorder consort’ together). And he handed it to me. That was very heavy, and I brought back home with me, and it’s on a shelf. But I don’t think I’ll jam with it. I used to play guitar pretty okay as a teen, so maybe I’ll borrow one and make a mess with you that way. ** Steve Erickson, Ah ha. Very curious. Everyone, Steve has made a new music track partly inspired by Mellotron Day, and let me facilitate him telling you all about it. Steve: ‘And here is my song “Mello Satin Tangerine Pillow”. It was hard to work melodically with the 7-second tape loops and their abrupt ends. I wound up editing some of them in a sampler so that they fade out, as well as adding effects like phasing and wah-wah. I plan to do more work with the mellotron samples.’ That’s quite a title, man. There’s been a little written/discussed here about the hoo-hah around ‘Cuties’ in the US, most of which consists of people thinking it’s just the billionth recent example of Americans having gone completely insane. I’ve read some reviews of the ‘Goat’s Head Soup’ reissue. It’s strange to me that there seems to be such a concerted effort to give that record some kind of due that it was supposedly not accorded at the time. Granted, I haven’t listened to it in a long time, but I can’t imagine it magically not being the point where their muse began to tell them bye-bye. ** Ian, Hi, Ian. Glad you liked it so much. Me too, duh. Mega-book, that one. And how awesome that it fed your writing. Best possible ever outcome. ** _Black_Acrylic, Hi. It’s a stellar book, but I would probably start with one of the novels, ‘The Voyeur’ maybe? ** politekid, Hey there, Oscar! So cool to see you! I’ve actually been thinking about you a lot while following the whole Tate mess, figuring your job would have been effected but hoping not against hope. I just read yesterday that a big bunch of art world big wigs and famous artists signed some thing trying to force the Tate into using part of their government bail-out to keep the employees they’ve cut? Do you think that’ll work? Seemed like pretty big public pressure maybe. I completely love your Phd topic to the max, which should not surprise you in the slightest. It made me immediately excited. So add me to the thumbs-up contingent. I’ll put my mind to trying to think up examples. Great about the script! ‘Wow’ and not knowing where they are … I mean, it doesn’t get better, does it? Fantastic! Man, I hope I’ll be able to get over there and see the show by then. Fuck knows what’ll happen you-know-what-wise, but I’m going to angle to. Plus there are other big reasons to get over there. (Possible London-based co-producer for Zac’s and my new film, for one). Anyway, super exciting, man! Another yes on ‘Des’. It’s inevitable now. Stuff with me is fine, working on things, making things, directing itself interesting directions, … not so bad. Again, so great to see you! Hang out, keep me up! ** Nik, Hi, Nik! A pleasure to be in your presence. Glad the post hit the sweet spot. I was just the other day trying to do a post about Sarraute’s ‘The Golden Fruits;’, my favourite of hers, only to find absolutely zip to work with since it also seems to have become her most obscure book. Grr. I’m good other than a very slooooow healing broken toe. Paris is all right, although we’re getting new restrictions imposed today because the COVID cases are rising fast. Nice you’re on campus. That sounds dreamy. I’ve only seen pix of the Bard campus, but it looks dreamy. That’s really great news about the collection of Mark Baumer’s work. Wow. Yeah, I was/am an admirer of his work and him. So good of you and Blake to do that. Yes, my new novel has a home (Soho Press), and the tentative release date is September 24, 2021. A long ways away, but still. Take care, sir. ** Right. Why not spend a bit of your day investigating the films of the very interesting and way too overlooked filmmaker William Greaves? Sound like a plan? See you tomorrow.
The Undertaker made his debut as a surprise member of Ted DiBiase’s Survivor Series Team at Survivor Series 1990. Despite rumors, he was not introduced as Kane the Undertaker. He was originally managed by Brother Love but a few months later Paul Bearer became his manager. In his first year in the WWF, he feuded with Randy Savage, the Ultimate Warrior, and Hulk Hogan. At Survivor Series 1991, the Undertaker won his first WWE Championship by beating Hulk Hogan.
‘The virtue of all-in wrestling is that it is the spectacle of excess. Here we find a grandiloquence which must have been that of ancient theatres. And in fact wrestling is an open-air spectacle, for what makes the circus or the arena what they are is not the sky (a romantic value suited rather to fashionable occasions), it is the drenching and vertical quality of the flood of light. Even hidden in the most squalid Parisian halls, wrestling partakes of the nature of the great solar spectacles, Greek drama and bullfights: in both, a light without shadow generates an emotion without reserve.’
In the spring of 1991, Jake Roberts tried to hit Miss Elizabeth with a chair but the Undertaker stopped him. The Undertaker remained a fan favorite for the next seven years. During that era, he fought monsters like Yokozuna, Kamala, and even a fake version of himself. In 1996, Paul Bearer turned on him. When Undertaker regained the WWF title in 1997, Paul Bearer threatened him with a secret from his past. The secret was that Undertaker started a fire that killed his parents and badly burned his brother, Kane.
While the Undertaker was fighting Shawn Michaels in the first-ever Hell in a Cell Match, Kane made his debut and cost his brother the match. Undertaker refused to fight his brother until Kane locked him in a coffin and set him on fire. The two men fought for the first time at WrestleMania XIV. Over the years the men have feuded and befriended each other on countless occasions.
After being a good guy for several years, the Undertaker became a cult leader and started sacrificing wrestlers on his symbol to satisfy the higher power. The person that he went after was Steve Austin and the WWF Championship. At the same time, Undertaker kidnapped Stephanie McMahon and tried to force her to marry him in a dark marriage. It was later revealed that the higher power was Vince McMahon.
‘It is obvious that at such a pitch, it no longer matters whether the passion is genuine or not. What the public wants is the image of passion, not passion itself. There is no more a problem of truth in wrestling than in the theatre. In both, what is expected is the intelligible representation of moral situations which are usually private.’
The Undertaker had another transformation a few years later. By 2001, he was a motorcycle rider and had cut his hair. He carried on with this gimmick for a few years. His biggest feud during this era was with Brock Lesnar. At Survivor Series 2003, Vince McMahon beat Undertaker in a Buried Alive match when Kane turned on his brother once again. When he returned at WrestleMania XX, he came back with his “dead man“ gimmick and reunited with Paul Bearer.
The reunification with Paul Bearer did not last long. Undertaker saw his friendship with him could be exploited as a weakness. Paul was kidnapped and trapped in a concrete crypt. Instead of saving Paul when he had a chance, he decided to bury his manager alive. Despite this vile action, wrestling fans still cheered him. In 2005, he had a bloody series of battles with Randy Orton.
In 2007, the Undertaker won the Royal Rumble for the first time. That victory gave him the opportunity to battle Batista for the World Heavyweight Championship at WrestleMania 23. Of all the records that Undertaker has, the most prestigious is his undefeated WrestleMania record. Undertaker won that match to claim his first World Heavyweight Championship.
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