Just a few songs, otherwise I'll be here all day
“There Is A Light That Never Goes Out” by the Smiths
I have actually been moved to tears by “Autobahn” and
“Trans-Europe Express” and other songs by Kraftwerk – not because they are
particularly sad but just the sheer splendor and majesty of the music. On my
last book tour of Germany, I got to play “Autobahn” on an actual autobahn,
while watching all those electricity-generating
windwills go past, and I did get teary
eyed.
Movies – too many to
list really. But one is Nicholas Roeg’s Walkabout, which is partly because the
film is poignant and beautiful but also because of John Barry’s soundtrack. The last time I saw the film was at a special
screening of the reissued and restored version at a theater in New York.
Afterwards I had to hurry out of the theater and find a quiet place to pull
myself together. The combination of the
movie and the music destroyed me.
Another film that has a devastating effect on me is The
Dream Life of Angels. The second time I saw it was when I had come back from a club
and was slightly drunk and vulnerable,
a bit maudlin, and it happened to be on TV. I had forgotten how it ends and so when the terribly sad ending came, and it
comes really quick, I was taken by surprise and really shattered. I actually
felt like bashing my brains out against the wall.
In some ways it is pleasing to know that art
can have that kind of effect on you. One of the definitions of art is that it
is a bad experience - -painful or disturbing -- that you voluntarily put
yourself through. A book or movie where what happens - how the story ends - actually hurts you.
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