Excuse me, but aren't you Michael Jackson?
December 02 2009
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There follows a tale of two documentaries the Pianobabbler recently saw: GENIUS WITHIN: The Inner Life of Glenn Gould, and This Is It. See the latter. See the former.
Others before the Pianobabbler have connected the Michael Jackson and Glenn Gould dot matrix. Shared characteristics:
- Creators, true creators.
- Gifted beyond normal comprehension.
- Interpersonally intricate.
- Too much medicine.
- Dead at 50.
Not that one would could should confuse MJ for GG. The distinctions submerge the connections.
But at the connective core lies this kernel: both GG and MJ made something where there was nothing. True creators.
GG - music and sound and radio and thought and emotion. He created a previously unknown soundscape, musicscape, mindscape, and artscape. If you haven't heard him playing Bach- go now and listen. If you haven't heard his radio documentary The Idea of North- go now and listen. If you've never read his writings...
MJ- like Fred Astaire, a charter member of the pantheon of primo dancers who could sing. If Fred or Michael had never sung a note, they would still have shone for their dancing brilliance.
And if they had never sung a note, songs now baked into the unconscious worldwide, Night and Day and Billie Jean, would never have been known.
The Pianobabbler recently saw GENIUS WITHIN: The Inner Life of Glenn Gould, and This Is It.
Both films induce hysteresis, physics' word for a state that persists after the stimulus goes away. Like metal that remains magnetic after removing the magnetic field.
You emerge from both Genius Within and This Is It but remain in the movies. Or the movies remain in you.
In MJ's case, the reason lies with his broad but simple ability to satisfy universal appetites. The scope and size of his work- driving rhythms, dense sonics, visual dazzle, facile dramatics, singers, dancers, costumes, lights -stimulate ultimate, if ultimately undernourishing, delight. This Is It rawly documents the assembly of MJ's stage show.
I don't believe the show itself would have appealed to the Pianobabbler. But this show about the show, This Is It, left him thinking for days (hysteresis) about mass art, and the art of mass art.
With GG one travels from the surface to the soul. How apt the title, Genius Within. The movie begins with the inner genius of GG. It depicts GG's odd, asymmetric life. We learn of, and see things about GG we have never seen or known before. Among the most moving moments are those with his almost-wife, Cornelia Foss, and her children. The marriage that never happened. The stepdad they never had. The appreciation they never expressed.
We also see and hear in This Is It much of GG himself. From the surface to the depths, GG bends inner gravity. One can't escape his pull. Emotionally and intellectually you are drawn to his always softspoken railings against concertizing, and to his appreciation for 60's pop singer Petula Clark.
You leave Genius Within in a wondrous daze at how much life one person can create. How much of the world one person can remould. Repeat: you leave Genius Within, but it does not leave you. Hysteresis.
Maximum thumbs and huzzahs to Genius Within's makers Michèle Hozer & Peter Raymont.
Not to compare, but to compare, MJ was a house, GG a home. MJ a flower, GG a garden. MJ an edifice, GG architecture. MJ a colour, GG the spectrum.
If you haven't seen Genius Within- go now and do so.
The Pianobabbler has babbled.
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- Website for GENIUS WITHIN: The Inner Life of Glenn Gould A documentary film by Michèle Hozer & Peter Raymont
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