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Archive for the ‘Nénette et Boni’ Category

Five Dials: Your Valentine’s Day Card (12 February 2010)

Posted in 35 rhums, Claire Denis, Constellation Records, Five Dials, Joe Dunthorne, L'intrus, Nénette et Boni, Romance, Sophia Augusta, Tindersticks, Trouble Every Day, Vendredi Soir, White Material on June 26, 2011| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: TINDERSTICKS-Claire Denis Film Scores 1996-2009 [CST077] (2011).

Constellation Records just released a 5 disc box set of Tindersticks movie scores.  Fans of the band will know the soundtracks for Nenette et Boni and Trouble Every Day which were released years ago.  Those are included here, along with four other soundtracks (on 3 discs).  The entire set includes Nenette et Boni (1996) White Material (2009), 35 rhum (2008), Trouble Every Day (2001) and two solo soundtracks: Stuart Staples’ score for L’intrus (2004) and Dickon Hinchliffe’s score for Vendredi Soir (2002).

As with most Constellation releases, this one is packaged beautifully.  The box is lovely with an opening for the top cover to show though. Each disc gets a cardboard sleeve with a cool still from the film.  And the booklet that accompanies the set is bilingual with lots and lots of still from the films and a cool interview with Denis and members of the band.

I have never seen any of Denis’ films.  So I was confused that some of these scores were only half an hour.  I thought maybe they were short films.  But indeed they are not.  35 Shots of Rum is 100 minutes for instance, even if the soundtrack is a third of that.

I’m going to review each score shortly, but since I’ve already discussed Nenette et Boni and Trouble Every Day, I’ll just put links to them.  In the meantime, the scores are really beautiful and moving.  Tindersticks are a very cinematic band to begin with, so it’s no surprise that they would make good soundtracks.

And the booklet is really interesting, showing how the band was introudced to Denis in the first place.  She loved the music of ‘My Sister’ and asked if she could use it for a film.  They said, well, maybe we can make a soundtrack for you instead.  And they began working together.  The combination proved so successful that they have scored virtually all of her movies since.  I really must get around to watching them some day.

In the meantime, I can just imagine what they are like from the music.

Here’s the opening credits for Trouble Every Day

[READ: June 24, 2011] Five Dials: Your Valentine’s Day Card

This Five Dials special issue doesn’t appear on the Five Dials home page.  I only found it while reading their news feed.  It’s not an issue per se.  Indeed, all that this valentine’s card is is one poem from Joe Dunthorne, and a cool cover illustration from Sophia Augusta. (more…)

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David Foster Wallace–“/Solomon Silverfish/” (Sonora Review no. 16, Fall 1987)

Posted in Cancer as plot device, David Foster Wallace, Funny (ha ha), Funny (strange), Infinite Summer, Marriage (Happy), Mystery, Nénette et Boni, Neurotics, Short Story, Sonora Review, Threats, Tindersticks on October 27, 2009| 2 Comments »

sonoraSOUNDTRACK: TINDERSTICKS-Nénette et Boni [soundtrack] (1996).

boniAfter releasing two albums of atmospheric brilliance, Tindersticks were called upon to score the music for the film Nénette et Boni.

And this disc answers the question of whether it is Stuart Staples’ voice that is the driving force behind the band.  And the answer is, indeed not.  This disc is almost entirely instrumental (except for “Tiny Tears” which is a different version from the second disc and is here titled “Petites gouttes d’eau”).  The band brings the same atmospheric/noir quality to this disc that they bring to the ir previous works, but you get to hear it in all of its glory (since you’re not trying to figure out what Stuart is talking about).

I haven’t seen the film, so I can’t say how well it works for the film.  But I feel like I know the film quite well from the tone and music (and what I think may be sounds from the film) that are present.  If you like the band musically, you absolutely cannot go wrong here.  There’s not a bad track on the disc.  Even the half dozen or so tracks that are only about a minute (this is a soundtrack after all) are quite evocative.

I read a brief description of the film online, and I’m not entirely sure I want to see it.  But I sure do enjoy listening to the music.

The reissued disc comes with a bonus disc called Marks Moods.  Marks Moods was a promo disc sent out to film producers to showcase just what the band could do (again, without Stuart’s vocals).  So this is another moody instrumental disc.  The difference is that there are many songs from other discs that are done (or re-done, I can’t be entirely sure) as instrumentals.  The four tracks with vocals are “Sleepy Song,” “Don’t Look Down,” and “Buried Bones” which is actually a duet.  And then there’s “For Those…” one of my favorite songs which seems to crop up all over the place but never on an actual album.

This appears to have been something of a find back in the day.  I’m not sure if it was really worth hunting down, but it is a nice bonus to this disc.

[READ: October 18, 2009] “/Solomon Silverfish/”

The last few uncollected DFW stories that I read were a little less than satisfying.  So I wasn’t looking forward to this one very much.  But man, was it good.  It seems to be a hearty precursor to Infinite Jest (without the endnotes).  It even has a character named Wardine!

The story is typographically a little odd.  The title and “section” headings are in backslashes.  (I have no idea if that signifies anything other than a typographical choice of DFW or the magazine).  The section headings are the names of the character whose point of view the section is.  So, when the story opens we see /Solomon/.

But aside from that, the most unusual thing in the story is that it is written in the voice of a very Jewish individual.  For Solomon Silverfish speaks in an almost stereotypical Jewish vernacular.  Solomon is married to Sophie Shoenweiss, a Jewish woman who is dying of breast cancer.  As the story opens, Solomon is fielding a phone call (at 2 in the morning) from Sophie’s brother Ira.  Ira has just been caught with his third DUI and he’s begging his brother-in-law, a fine public defendant, to bail him out (again). (more…)

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