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Jean-Luc Godard's master-
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0 michigandaily.com/arts
ARTS
FRIDAY
OCTOBER 19, 2001
5
David Lynch's 'Mulholland
Drive' challenges viewers'
convention and perception
Orbital brings own
techno to Detroit
By Sonya Sutherland
Daily Arts Writer
By Todd Weiser
Daily Arts Writer
When David Lynch's
aters back in 1997, its
"Two Thumbs Down! -
"Lost Highway" hit the-
advertisements bragged
- Siskel and Ebert; two
more great reasons to see
'Lost Highway."' This decla-
ration reveals Lynch's opin-
ion of critics, especially
Mulholland their thoughts on his own
Drive mysterious, challenging
A- films. While "Lost High-
Grade: A way" may have been an
At Showcase intense test of the limits of
and Michigan Theater weirdness and inexplicabili-
ty, "Mulholland Drive"
treads similar territory but
this time there is meaning
- shining through the darkness
and maybe even a coherent
structure depending the
interpretation one adopts. Whatever meaning lies
behind the madness, it is still exhilarating to sort
out (or just plain view) the amazing puzzle of
scenes and images that constitute Lynch's latest
film.
"Mulholland Drive" originated as a pilot for a
show on ABC, but after completion ABC execu-
tives passed on the strange episode and no other
network picked it up. Lynch went on to make
"The Straight Story" and then later filmed new
footage to craft "Mulholland Drive" into a fea-
ture film. Lynch shared the Best Director prize at
this year's Cannes Film Festival for his modern
masterpiece.
After one of the most entertaining and bizarre
opening sequences in recent memory (don't
worry, its inclusion will make sense later in the
film), comes a violent car crash that leaves one
survivor. The dazed and confused woman (Laura
Harring) wanders into an empty apartment to rest
and shower. At this same time, Betty (Naomi
Watts) arrives in Los Angeles to achieve her
dream of being an actress. When Betty arrives at
the apartment of her aunt, who is in Canada
shooting a movie, she finds the woman and
instead of calling for help, she gives help herself.
The car accident has left this woman with amne-
sia, not knowing who she or even what her name
is. After she adopts the name Rita, Betty assists
her in searching for her true identity.
Meanwhile, young successful director Adam
Kesher (Justin Theroux) is recasting his lead
actress role in a new film. The eccentric Brothers
Castigliane, apparently affiliated with the mob,
pressure Kesher and the studio to cast a certain
Camilla Rhodes in the part, or else. Stripped of
assets by these powerful men and then finding
his wife locked in an affair with none other than
a pool cleaner (Billy Ray Cyrus, of "Achy
Breaky Heart" fame), Kesher's future in this mad
world of Hollywood looks dreary if he does not
succumb to their demands.
There are various side plots as well that tie
together the lives of Betty, Rita and Adam and
may or may not shed light on who Rita really is.
Several supporting characters pop up in scenes
never to reappear; it must be assumed that these
are the faces that would have populated the con-
tinuous story lines of the TV series. However,
even with a running time of two and a half hours,
we only briefly witness the extraordinary world
that might have been.
The largely no-name cast pulls off their roles
with excellence. The unfamiliar faces leave no
It's debatable whether techno is
harder in Detroit or theU.K. but last
Tuesday night, those in attendance at
Orbital
St. Andrews Hal
October 16, 2001
St. Andrews had
the pleasure of
witnessing the
union of both.
Numbering in
the earliest of
electronic pio-
neers, Orbital
packed up their
p r o j e c t i o n
screens and
sequencers and
traversed the
lar among electronic masterminds
Roland-808 through a massive list of
old favorites, including "Halcyon,"
"Satan" and "Chime."
The set, decked out with a barricade
of electronic equipment - drum
machines, synthesizers, keyboards and
mixers - proved to be more than a
frivolous demonstration of a record
label's tour budget. Hiding behind
their equipment with only coal miner
headlights indicating their position;
these masters were not simply mess-
ing around.
From the second the first drumbeat
dropped to the easy listenings of the
set winding down, Orbital elicited a
fanatical response from the crowd,
who cheered the boys on through
every track change. With a strong U.S.
fan base, Orbital is hoping their sound
will catch on and carry through their
DVD release of a Dolby 5.1 surround
sound musical accomplishment
accompanied by short video essays.
Experimenting and pushing the
envelope established Orbital as pre-
miere forefathers of the modern elec-
tronic movement and from their
performance they demonstrated that
they don't plan on stopping anytime
soon.
courtesy of Studio canal
Justin Theroux wants to recast you, baby.
room for character connotations, they must be
judged purely on the material presented. The
anonymous status of each role enhances the mys-
teriousness of the characters and the situations
they encounter.
Limiting "Mulholland Drive" to only one
theme or narrative interpretation is a viewer's
shortcoming; this film has the capacity for a dif-
ferent understanding after each viewing. Is it a
satire of the manipulative and corruptive world
of Hollywood as seen through the initially inno-
cent, ambitious Betty and the film-auteur Adam'?
Or does it plainly question what is reality
through the use of dreams and/or amnesia? Both?
Neither? The point of the film is that there are no
easy answers to these questions, and whatever a
viewer takes from it is his own unique version.
Lynch spends his spare-time painting, some-
times incorporating dead birds and raw meat.
Like his paintings, Lynch's films can be contro-
versial, abstract, but also endlessly intriguing.
Art should not always be easily comprehensible,
that is what makes it art.
high seas bringing arguably the best
beats Michigan has heard since the
Detroit Electronic Music Festival.
Consisting of brothers Phil and Paul
Hartnoll, Orbital bassed and boomed
through the greater portion of a two-
hour set, delighting all fans with a
crossover of thoughtful imaging and
the support of crunchy break beats.
Orbital began the night with "Ten-
sion" from their new album All
Together and carried on out through-
out the night, tweaking the ever-popu-
Linkin Parktames,
pleases- at Palace
By Sonya Sutherland
Daily Arts Writer
Piano prodigy Kissin takes stage at Hill
One would like to assume because a
band sells more than a million records
that they should be automatically elimi-
nated from any cool playlist. Well, leave
By Alexis Zhu
For the Daily
Arguably two of the greatest musicians of this cen-
tury will have come to Ann Arbor by the end of the
life, "Evgeny Kissin, The G
Kissin began playing the
six, he entered the fam
Moscow, where he found
Pavlovna Kantor. He firstc
month. If you missed Claudio tion at the tender age of 1
Abbado and the Berlin Philhar- Chopin Concertos with the
monic, ydu do not want to miss That much talked-about fe
Evgeny Kissin, the newest the New York Philharmon
Evgeny Russian mastermind of the out U.S. debut under the b
Kissin piano. You can find him at Hill collaboration was strikin
Hill Auditorium Auditorium on Oct. 24th, where Grammy nomination.
Wednesday at s8p.m. he will take to the stage the He has been playing to s
rarely performed "Pictures at an wide ever since and has a
Exhibition," by his fellow coun- orchestras led by the likesc
tryman Modest Mussorgsky. He Herbert von Karajan, Seija
will also be playing works by Kissin easily caters to 55 c
Schumann and Bach. Besides taking to the sta
At the age of 30, Kissin has quite a daunting record cat
already taken his undisputed discography includes wor
place among the likes of his Haydn, Liszt, Prokofiev,I
Russian predecessors, Horowitz, Richter and Gilels. Though often criticized for
His musical sensitivities, bold temperament, near per- choice of repertoire, it wil
feet technique and his capacity to produce such a var- he develops and what he
ied range of color in his playing have helped to label from now. In that time, he
him as a prowess of romantic- literature. PBS has porary realms and amaze u
determined his contributions to the music world sig- The public simply can't
nificant enough to film an entire documentary on his overtly tall and gangly Ki
Ethereal exhibition
Sift of Music."
piano at the age of two. At
ed Gnessin Institute of
his lifelong teacher, Anna
came to international atten-
2 when he performed both
Moscow State Symphony.
eat was later repeated with
ic when he made his sold-
aton of Zubin Mehta. The
ng enough to earn him a
old out concert halls world-
ppeared with all the major
of Claudio Abbado, the late
Ozawa, and Zubin Mehta.
oncerts a season.
age, the pianist has created
alog as well. His extensive
ks by Beethoven, Chopin,
Rachmaninov and others.
r being too traditional in his
1 be interesting to see how
chooses to play 25 years
may explore more contem-
s in those areas as well.
seem to get enough of the
issin. Seemingly rigid and
awkward when approaching the stage with his mas-
sive hands and equally massive Afro to match, percep-
tions instantly change when Kissin produces the first
sonorous note. In one instance, he was called back for
no less than 15 encores. It is a remarkable feat for
such a young pianist, any pianist for that matter, to be
able to feed his audience in this way - to serve and
stun over and over again without fail. The audience
can expect nothing less than another legendary perfor-
mance Wednesday night.
Linkin
Park
Palace of
Auburn Hills
October 15, 2001
Al?
it to a group with
two lead singers
and a turntable to
surpass the stig-
ma of sell-out and
make the cut with
over six million
sold. Hailing
from California,
Linkin Park.
joined Staind,
Static-X and the
Stone Temple
Pilots for the
Family Values
Tour, warming up
Bennington providing the singing and
the Mike Shinoda supporting a slick rap-
ping style. The vocal mix that distin-
guishes Linkin Park from the recent fad
of harder rock boy bands was only made
that much better with string support
from Delson and Phoenix, the rather
hidden but energetic flailing hands of
drummer Rob Bourdon and the boys'
obvious delight for live performances
and their fans.
Opening with "Papercut" and contin-
uing onto "Pushing Me Away" and new
single "In the End," Linkin Park rallied
the mostly disaffected youth into a rough
and tumble mosh pit, with Bennington
and Shinoda periodically reminding the
crowd just how sweet they were. Intro-
ducing a special guest for the evening,
Ann Arbor's own Stephen Richard's of
Taproot, while Bennington hopped on
his back for a short piggyback venture
across stage.
Winding down their set with the over
exposed but still extremely enjoyable
single "Crawling," Linkin Park made it
quiet clear that they aren't joining in the
trend of one-hit metal wonders, rather
that their new album is something to
look forward to. Energetic, entertaining
and audibly pleasing, Linkin Park took
their sound beyond the more common
attempts to reproduce a studio sound on
stage, and provided the essential flavor
to the Family Values Tour, leaving
Staind and Stone Temple Pilots a
wicked platform from which to play.
the sold out Palace of Auburn Hills.
While taming a crowd is easy, pleas-
ing a crowd takes ability, and rocking it
is another story. Despite tighter security
and the overall recent feelings of unease,
Linkin Park came out in top form, their
guitarist Brad Delson still playing
despite his broken foot. On second after
a stellar performance by Static-X, whose
loud crunching guitars and indecipher-
able hoarse vocals certainly started the
rock 'n' roll party off right, Linkin Park
throttled the crowd with their trademark
mix of smooth vocalization -Chester
Kissen ticklin' the eyebrows.
studies cigarettes
By Marie Bernard
* Daily Arts Writer
With the constant warnings from
the surgeon general;
Donald
Sultan
UMMA
Through November 25
Donald Sultan, in1
and the slow bar-
ring of smokers
from all public
locales, the
American public
has managed to
blithely ignore
all which
remains appeal-
ing about
smoke. We have
forgotten that
alluring image
of white through
black air, those
seductive rings
floating in space.
his exhibit "The
ethereal nature. The exhibit, which
runs through Nov. 25th at the Univer-
sity Museum of Art, pays a stunning
tribute both to his subject and his tal-
ent.
Sultan has been a popular figure in
contemporary art since he arrived on
the scene in the mid-'70s. He received
a BFA from the University of North
Carolina and an MFA from the School
of the Art Institute of Chicago. His
work is in collections all over the
world, including the Museum of Fine
Arts in Boston, The Guggenheim, The
Whitney Museum of American Art
and the Metropolitan Museum of Art
all in New York.
Sultan is now in his mid-50s. "After
I left school, I decided it was impor-
tant to start putting imagery back into
abstract painting," he said in an inter-
view with the Phoenix New-Times. "I
got a call from a gallery in Chicago
saying the tiles were falling off.
Underneath the tiles was the black
glue you use to adhere tiles to the
floor. I decided I liked the black.
When I put these two together, I
thought it was such a breakthrough in
abstract painting because it adhered to
everything that was interesting to me
- flat painting that purely portrayed,
materials and yet it had a depth of
being a real seascape."
He has experimented with many
kinds of media, including painting,
prints and sculpture. " The Smoke
Rings" reflects Sultan's continuous
interest in modernizing the classic
form of still life.
To create the paintings for this
exhibit, Sultan first cut shapes into 12-
inch vinyl floor tiles, which were
applied to masonite panels. He then
filled the cut-out space with plaster or
tar, and then painted over the entirety
of the work. These massive paintings,
which are held in the main room of
the Museum of Art, are confrontation-
al both in size and subject. In the end,
his "still lifes" are almost surreal, an
effect reached by both the unique
medium and his transitional subject.
British writer Max Bragg has also
contributed to the exhibit. In the past,
Bragg has collaborated his poetry
with the photography of Ralph Gib-
son. His words, which pay attention to
our own associations with smoke -
be it Marlene Dietrich, smoked fish or
hash -- enhance Sultan's achieve-
ments.
linkin Park lead singer Chester Bennington is "Crawling" around the stage.
Smoke Rings," has reclaimed this
I_
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