The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Arts
Tuesday, April 7, 2015 — 5
La Dispute plays
Masonic Temple
Post-hardcore
band plays intimate
toned-down set at
Detroit venue
By CARLY SNIDER
Daily Arts Writer
It started with the tremble of
a cabasa and some spoken word.
Taking the quaint stage of the
chapel in the Masonic Temple
last Thursday night, La Dispute
opened with a poem. The cha-
pel was silent as frontman Jor-
dan Dreyer recited the piece, his
voice accompanied only by his
own echo and the vibrating air of
percussion. Ending with a quick
breath and a “Thank you,” the
crowd burst into cheers.
The atmosphere was inti-
mate, with an audience of little
more than 300 people. A vaulted
ceiling, velvet-cushioned pews
and a hanging, illuminated cross
made it obvious from the start
that this would not be a normal
concert experience. The show
was broken up into three parts:
a musical portion, followed by
a question and answer session
with the crowd and then more
music from the band. Attract-
ing diehard fans, this type of
show was perfect for those who
wanted more than just a perfor-
mance. It was a conversation.
The group opened with “A
Departure” off of Wildlife, setting
the mood for the rest of the show.
Playing mainly from their latest
two albums, Wildlife and Rooms
of the House, La Dispute kept it
recent, despite their long history
as a group. The setlist spanned 11
songs, much of which paid hom-
age to Michigan, as the group is
originally from Grand Valley.
These Michigan roots came
out again in the question and
answer, as a large portion of the
crowd consisted of Grand Rapids
natives, or close to it. Drawing
inspiration from the company
they found around them in GR,
the band talked about how it has
been able to grow, both musi-
cally and through the addition
of new members, over its 11-year
run. They told stories of playing
in abandoned homes and having
to sing into the left ear of a head-
phone set due to faulty micro-
phones – the sort of things fans
eat right up.
Though La Dispute was not
entirely at ease with this kind of
back-and-forth with the audi-
ence, it was clear that the musi-
cians were trying to make it
work. Dreyer openly admitted to
the “sheer terror” he felt while
performing, but he also felt that
the admission of his unease was
healthy and honest. At the open-
ing, he even apologized for the
slight shake in his voice, as this
type of show took a lot of cour-
age for him and his band mates.
While singing, Dreyer remained
seated, eyes closed, rocking
back and forth atop a pleather-
upholstered chair. His delivery,
as well as the instrumentals,
was less aggressive than the
group’s studio sound, adding to
the intimacy.
The Q&A also brought out
the quirks of the band members:
They unanimously hate play-
ing “Such Small Hands” (even
though many think it their claim
to fame), a guitar riff on “Scenes
From Highways 1981-2009” was
stolen from a bird chirping outside
the window of the band’s cottage,
their music has been influenced by
Stanley Kubrick movies. Dreyer
even asked for an update on the
Red Wings game from time to
time. It was a refreshing change
of pace to see a band that is usu-
ally dripping in sweat in front
of a crowd of thrashing bodies
replaced by one engaged in casual
banter with its audience.
La
Dispute’s
toned-down
musical performance was the
perfect compliment to the con-
versation. Still harnessing their
emotional
prowess,
Dreyer’s
vocals were slightly less strained
than his usual shouting delivery
(think slam poetry). The instru-
mentals also took a step back,
somehow managing to be soft
yet still maintain their post-
hardcore sound. There was no
one peak song or breakaway
moment of the performance;
it was largely about how each
individual
audience
member
related to different pieces. Look-
ing around, the connection was
obvious – whether it was head
bobbing, mouthing of words or
just a subtle tap of the foot.
The
show
wrapped
with
“Objects In Space,” another
breathy,
heavily
appreciative
“Thank you” and the band’s exit.
The emotional aftermath was
one of appreciation – for the
band, for their work, for the arts
in general. This type of open and
authentic presentation of their
music, and of themselves, was
so successful for La Dispute
because they have never had
anything to hide. Emotionally
and mentally, they have always
been willing to sharing it all –
and that is exactly what they did.
COMMUNITY CULTURE COLUMN
Urban Outfitters
killed the hipster
T
hrough every modern era
of the last half-century,
given strong political
movements, faster spread
of information and increas-
ingly educated
populations,
there’s a
creeping
underbelly of
counterculture
that thrives on
the antithesis
of what the
prominent
generation
stands for.
There were the hippies of the
late 1960s, advocating free love
and psychedelic drugs against
the backdrop of the Nixon era
and the Vietnam war, followed
by the anti-establishment punks
of the ’80s and ’90s.
A few years ago, a new kind
of counterculture emerged: the
hipsters, all at once disinterested
in anything popular and becom-
ing increasingly the same in
terms of fashion and consumer
choices. This was a culture
defined by indie rock, beards
and upper-middle class white
folks moving to urban areas.
They were made fun of because
of their pretentiousness and
passivity, but also because they
didn’t really stand for anything
politically substantial. And then
… they were everywhere.
The hipsters couldn’t count on
standing out in their oversized
flannel and beanies anymore. In
the span of just a couple years,
alternative fashion had spread to
your little sister in middle school,
every celebrity targeted by paps
and even uppity sorority girls.
This is an effect I like to call the
“Urban Outfitters complex.”
With the introduction of my
self-fabricated phrase, it’s nec-
essary to expose my readers to
a perhaps shocking, yet neces-
sary truth: Urban Outfitters is
very, very bad. There’s no way to
analyze their terrible business
practices as in depth as I would
like to in this column. I could go
on for thousands of words about
the subject, but I’ll try and lay out
a basic framework.
Widespread marketing of “hip-
ster” trends has diluted any sem-
blance of a politically substantial
counterculture for this current
era by exploiting people buying
their way into trends. Why buy
a vintage-looking Cosby sweater
for $10 at Salvation Army when
you can get the same thing at a
store with hip marketing for $80?
It might be clean, but it’ll prob-
ably fall apart in three washes
like everything else in the store.
(If you’ve ever bought a piece of
clothing from Urban, you know
that quality is not their most
prized attribute.)
In fact, Urban Outfitters has
relied on it’s cool-kid branding
to sell absolute crap to people,
who will buy nearly everything
this chain puts out. Shot glasses
shaped like prescription pill
containers? Check. Clothing
reminiscent of the Holocaust
and pro-Nazi tendencies? Well,
this is something. Oh geez, here
too. Don’t have enough pressure
on you to conform to unrealis-
tic body standards? Wear it on
a T-shirt. Jesus Christ, how is
this store still open? Well, my
dear readers, it’s because Urban
Outfitters is a store for “rebel-
lious teenagers” (read: rich kids
spending their parents money on
offending content), and so their
innumerable controversies hit
blind eyes.
“I mean yeah, Nazis are bad,
but how cool are these HUF
socks?”
So yes, Urban has a controver-
sial past in terms of content. But
what about business practices?
Urban Outfitters has a history of
ripping off independent artists,
taking advantage of jewelers and
designers who are just trying
to make a living for themselves.
For a company that has become
the Blessed Virgin for throngs
of indie kids, I don’t see “ruin-
ing lives for capitalist profits”
under the fine print of the laws of
hipster-dom.
Whether for good or bad,
hipster culture had the chance
to become one of the next big
social-political countercultures
of modern day. In an alternate
universe, a future Wikipedia
article could accredit hipsters
with leading the crusade for
marriage equality or self-
sustaining farming or another
valuable social movement. But
the truth is, hipsters never had a
chance. As soon as corporations
realized they could exploit the
trend of shrugging off popular
brands for individuality and
thrift stores, they provided a
space for young people to pay
their way into adopting the cool
style of their older siblings and
Tumblr models. And they made
it very, very expensive.
With marketability, the cul-
ture became perverted and lost
any chance of political credibil-
ity. This isn’t a tirade against
our system of capitalism, but it
is a commentary about ethical
consumption under it. If you
really want to be different and
stand for something, invest
your money in businesses with
ties to sustainable practices —
ones that support artists and
designers in the career paths
they’ve dedicated themselves to
and don’t exploit mental illness
and disaster for shock value
profits. Urban is not countercul-
ture; it’s unethical.
Davis is currently burning down
the local Urban. To assist, email
her at katjacqu@umich.edu.
KATHLEEN
DAVIS
FILM REVIEW
‘Gold’ fails to shine
By LAUREN WOOD
Daily Arts Writer
Half courtroom drama, half
historic snapshot, “The Woman
in Gold” overestimates its central
story’s intrigue
and peppers in
its most pow-
erful, redeem-
ing
moments
almost
as
an
afterthought.
After learning
that the Austri-
an government
is beginning an
art reparations
program for families to reclaim
stolen art, Maria Altmann (Helen
Mirren, “The Queen”) enlists the
help of young, struggling lawyer
Randol Schoenburg (Ryan Reyn-
olds, “The Proposal”) to help her
retrieve a painting of her beloved
Aunt Adele that was stolen from
her family by the Nazis prior
to WWII. However, while the
painting is simply a portrait of
her aunt to Maria, it is also one
of Austria’s most prized posses-
sions, a masterpiece by Gustav
Klimt, and it takes years of politi-
cal maneuvering to work the
painting back into Maria’s pos-
session. As Altmann and Schoen-
burg weave their way through
the legal roadblocks standing
between them and the Austrian
government, Maria is forced to
face her harrowing past, bringing
Randol to an understanding of
his own ancestry in the process.
The film’s strength lies in its
ability to seamlessly navigate
between Maria’s past and pres-
ent. Skipping over the distant
gazes, echoing words and hazy
effects that seem to preclude
most
wartime
flashbacks
in
film, “The Woman in Gold” eas-
ily moves into scenes of Maria’s
memories in a way that feels com-
pletely believable, leaving the
audience with a respect for Mir-
ren’s character that doesn’t seem
formulaic or forced. The film at
first eases into the flashbacks as
Maria encounters herself as a
child on the streets she grew up
on, later fully immersing itself in
her memories as she confronts
the spaces that housed the most
significant moments of her life
in Vienna. The scenes of Maria’s
opulent Vienna lifestyle, first
encounters with the Nazi party
and eventual escape to America
add a fuel to a story that would
otherwise easily deflate after
the first few nervy courtroom
scenes. The young Maria’s (Tati-
ana Maslany, “Orphan Black”)
dynamic portrayal provides a
perfect counterpart to Mirren’s
tenacious older woman fighting
to reconcile herself with the past.
The flashbacks float in a ghost-
ly, pale color palette that gives a
cloyingly ominous tone to even
Maria’s happiest memories, like
dancing with her family on her
wedding day. As we watch her
picturesque life unravel around
her, the chill of the images
becomes more apparent, espe-
cially when placed against the
warm shine of the gilded por-
trait of her aunt she is working to
reclaim. We come to understand
the painting as much more than
just a piece of art; a symbol of the
warmth that was leeched from
her life by the Nazis, something
that, even when it is reclaimed,
can’t change the events of the
past.
Ryan Reynolds, however, is
a strange choice for the reluc-
tant lawyer who Maria enlists
to handle her case, undermin-
ing the film’s solemn intentions
and making a predictable shuffle
through his emotional range. It’s
difficult to take his schoolboy
cuteness seriously given his past
filmography, and while this does
add an element of accessibility
to a film that otherwise might
appeal to a smaller, more seri-
ous crowd, it ultimately takes
away from the film’s authentic-
ity. Moving from stressed to
defeated to angry to elated with
a disappointingly predictable
rhythm, Reynolds attempts to
hide the heart he wears on his
sleeve while actually just dis-
guising it with a pair of cheap
wire frames.
While
the
film’s
focus
seems to be misplaced on the
long, asymmetric legal battle
between a novice lawyer, his
old family friend and the Aus-
trian government, its treat-
ment of memory and the past
is able to breathe life into the
slower side of the story, with
one infamous portrait hang-
ing precariously in the chasm
between then and now.
C+
The Woman
in Gold
BBC Films
Quality 16 &
Michigan Theater
FILM REVIEW
Important ‘Ground’
By BENJAMIN ROSENSTOCK
Daily Arts Writer
“She said, ‘I just want to make
sure you don’t talk to anyone
about this.’”
As
“The
Hunting
Ground” dem-
onstrates
in
its
opening
scenes, a col-
lege
campus
can be a beau-
tiful
place.
There’s noth-
ing quite like
the joy of getting that initial
e-mail that you’ve been accepted
to your dream school. Once you
arrive, there’s a general hustle
and bustle that gives the attrac-
tive illusion of safety, of campus
spirit and local culture inter-
mingling. Everything is happy
and the world is your oyster.
Cut to the title card: “The
Hunting Ground.” From that
point forward, director Kirby
Dick (“The Invisible War”)
doesn’t waste any time on
appearances. Pretty shots of
springtime campuses are edited
to be juxtaposed alongside the
chilling testimonies of sexual
assault victims on campuses all
across the United States. That
juxtaposition is a little on-the-
nose, as is Lady Gaga’s featured
song “Till It Happens to You,”
a song she wrote about sexual
assault specifically for the film.
Maybe it’s a little manipulative
to use the soundtrack that way,
and to start with that falsely
cheery vision of college. It
doesn’t really matter, though.
This is all real. This needs to be
seen.
As
young
women
share
their experiences, the camera
racks focus on imaginary party
scenes, coating the scene in lens
flare and blurriness to suggest
how little control the survivors
had. In its best moments, “The
Hunting Ground” attempts to
remedy that helplessness and
give agency to the survivors of
sexual assault. The documenta-
ry focuses most often on Andrea
Pino and Annie E. Clark, two
survivors who banded together
at the University of North Caro-
lina at Chapel Hill and sought to
fix widespread ignorance about
rape on college campuses. It’s
deeply affecting to watch Pino
and Clark working together
and reaching out to survivors at
other universities, whether it’s
nervous Skype calls or emotion-
al meetings in person.
Woven in among the personal
testimonies are statistics and
interviews
with
profession-
als, to varying degrees of suc-
cess. Some moments are very
effective, like a stylish, darkly
funny montage of empty prom-
ises from college officials say-
ing they take reports of sexual
assault “very seriously.” Other
times, the numbers tend to dull
down the impact of the subject.
They’re important to hear, but
hearing so many percentages
depersonalizes sexual assault,
reducing its ubiquity to a statis-
tic instead of a tragedy (as the
famous saying goes). It’s also a
little unnecessary to spend so
much time with psychologists,
journalists and campus officials
who lend their opinions on the
matter. Some of their interviews
provide insight into the issue,
especially when they explain
universities’ financial incentives
to withhold reports of sexual
assault, but like the statistics,
they create a certain distance
from the heart of the issue.
There’s also the simple fact
that testimonials from campus
administrators are inherently
less interesting on an entertain-
ment level than interviews with
the survivors themselves.
“The Hunting Ground” usu-
ally goes for breadth instead of
depth, touching on many facets
of sexual assault while leav-
ing many of them underdevel-
oped. This is both a strength
and a weakness. On the positive
side, “The Hunting Ground”
gives viewers valuable knowl-
edge about a variety of issues
and points of view related to
assault, becoming the defini-
tive documentary about cam-
pus rape. On the other hand,
some parts are interesting but
don’t go anywhere. Around 20
minutes focus on Greek life,
particularly Sigma Alpha Epsi-
lon, nicknamed “Sexual Assault
Expected.” Some time is spent
on Erica Kinsman, the alleged
victim
of
FSU
quarterback
Jameis Winston. One scene fea-
tures a male student confessing
how his claim is taken less seri-
ously due to his gender. These
are all intriguing threads that
warrant entire documentaries
of their own, but some of them
are barely touched on.
At one point, Notre Dame stu-
dent Molly, near tears, recounts
the experience of telling her
parents about her assault. Her
father, a Notre Dame alum,
constantly wears his class ring,
but when Molly tells him about
her assault, he never wears it
again. It’s the kind of personal
detail that transcends statistics
and calculated psychological
diagnoses. It’s poignant stories
like this that make the film so
important.
Despite some technical issues
with structure and allocation of
time, “The Hunting Ground” is
an example of a movie in which
content is more important than
form. It demands viewing sim-
ply because of how essential
the subject is, and how des-
perately sexual assault survi-
vors need someone out there to
show them they’re not alone.
The documentary is a visceral,
important piece of cinema that
pleads with its audience not to
forget its messages. Most view-
ers won’t.
B+
The Hunting
Ground
RADiUS-TWC
Michigan Theater
Content is more
important than
form.
NO SLEEP
Detroit Freebird!
CONCERT REVIEW