Catching up with the movies I have missed while I was isolated from the world in the middle of the oceans, I have watched very interesting TV documentary "Izgubljeno Dugme" ("The Lost Button") about the biggest Ex Yu rock band "Bijelo Dugme" ("The White Button") and its drummer who at the peak of popularity and adoration was arrested for drug possession - it was a big scandal that probably used the 25 year old Ipe Ivandić as a scapegoat and a example, but it turned out a tragedy. I am a bit too young to remember the band's golden years in 1970s (when I caught up with them in 1980s they already had different musicians) but even from old recordings I could easily hear how this particular drummer enhanced their sound and Ivandić was really he heartbeat of the band. When we think about Ex Yu as a communist country behind the iron curtain it is actually surprising that officials even permitted such things as rock concerts in the stadiums that completely emulated international rock stars, perhaps today we simply remember things differently - it wasn't really such backwards country as people felt inferior to the west and this complex of inferiority persisted for decades, everything homegrown was considered less interesting than something from outside - back to "Bijelo Dugme", they certainly had huge success in 1970s and it was just inevitable that police will eventually raid musicians houses in search of drugs, this drummer ended up imprisoned for three years and it basically left him traumatised for the rest of his life, even though he later re-joined the band his life was never the same and he ended up killing himself at the age of 39, with a tiny group of friends at his funeral - where on old concert TV performances we see audiences of thousands applauding and enjoying his shows, really incredible how this whole phenomenon of fame is actually such illusion.
"Whiplash" is a very interesting and intense 2014. drama about young Jazz drummer and his Calvary in famous Shaffer Conservatory. I was a little confused at first with the whole premise of the movie, because being old fashioned music aficionado, I always assumed that Jazz musicians play and improvise on the spot and only classical musicians need serious drill, but this movie treats Jazz musicians with the same seriousness like if they play Chopin and apparently they need to know every technical nuance if they want to perform on competitions. The main character (very good Miles Teller) is less concerned with brutal, throat-cutting and unfriendly atmosphere amongst the musicians who actually don't accept him and nobody ever talks to him than with his teacher (brilliant J. K. Simmons who won "Oscar" for this role) who treats his pupils as they are in the army. Even though I understand that this teacher strived to create another music genius and his goal was to push his guys beyond the limits in order to achieve something amazing, the movie really turns very sadistic at the times and I am still upset about the whole thing. For the sake of the story we are told that young drummer bleeds and never gives up until he achieves brilliance (kind of marathon training for Olympic games) but I really dislike this way of thinking and would not be happy if somebody treats my child like this, no matter what results. On the positive side, this is the first time that I see the movie about musicians that is actually extremely interesting and compulsive watching like the most exciting thriller.
British TV documentary "Who Do You Think You Are?" is another very interesting program that deals with historians researching long-forgotten or even unknown details from lives of selected celebrities. Everything can be researched professionally, including the tiniest details from all sorts of archives and these people really know how to create interesting stories. I watched several episodes already and the one that really caught my interest was the one with Marianne Faithfull who was curious to find out about her aristocratic Austrian mother. Faithfull remembers her as a sad, lonely drinker who often exaggerated about her past so she wanted to learn the real facts and in this particular episode researches took her first to Berlin where her mother was a sharp theatre dancer who performed in risque cabaret shows, than to Vienna where her half-Jewish family had to hide from Nazies and endured true nightmare lives. The story that suddenly emerges from these old documents shows the family that lived in extremely dangerous times and although yes, they were aristocratic family (no less than Sacher-Masoch) there was nothing glamorous about Gestapo tortures and possibility of being send to concentration camps, not to mention what happened when Russian army entered conquered Vienna and raped all the women they found (including Faithfull's mother and grandmother who barely survived the war). Faithfull herself was shaken and shocked with all the findings but at the same time impressed with bravery and the strength of her family. Excellent story that even eclipses her own life story and in fact, makes Faithfull's own Calvary kind of superficial - whatever had happened to her was her own choice, while this was a true danger for everybody involved and the family barely survived the war, even if it left the lifelong traumas for everybody involved.
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