The works of a hundred years' journey of blues music

The following seven masterpieces accompany the director of the blues world:

Want to go home?

Director: martin scorsese/Length: 83 minutes.

Director's self-report: I have always felt that I have something in common with blues music-this culture of telling stories through music fascinates me. Blues have great attraction and are the foundation of American pop music.

Abstract: For Bruce guitarist Cory Harris, it was a real long journey: from Mississippi in the United States, across the Pacific Ocean, to Mali in West Africa. The purpose of his visit: to find the root of the blues. Under the guidance of Scorsese, he began to explore the footsteps and muddy waters of the legendary Bruce john lee hooker. He wants to find the soul of blues music, because this form of music is closely related to the fate of African-American immigrants in North America.

There are not only performances by Willie King, Taj Mahal, Osama Turner and Ali Fakatul,

There are also precious shots of john lee hooker, Muddy Water and his son's house.

The Feeling of Going Home focuses on the African origin of the blues, so its significance goes far beyond the blues itself.

The types of music involved are very diverse. Scorsese's work is heavier than other films. As the protagonist, Cory Harris' interview with musicians is somewhat dry, which slightly limits the visibility of the film.

Director's comments: Sikorse's preference for documentaries runs through his entire career as a director. This violent poet participated in the editing of the famous "Love and Peace: A Documentary of Uztok Music Festival" in 1970, and then he filmed "Italian-American" and told the story of his parents. Scorsese's The Last Waltz (1978) is called "the most beautiful rock movie ever".

1995 entrusted by the British film academy, he completed a four-hour documentary [American film:

And Martin Scorsese's personal journey through American movies) to celebrate the centenary of film art, and later filmed My Voyage to Italy, which was released on 200 1 and won the "Film History Award" from the National Film Critics Association of the United States.

A person's soul

Director: WIM· Wenders/Length: 103 minutes.

The director said: to me, these music mean the whole world. I learned about America through them,

More real than any book or movie I have ever seen. In this movie,

I try to write poems instead of making documentaries to describe how these music and characters make me feel.

Summary: In Soul of Music, Wenders pays tribute to his three favorite blues singers in his own way. Because blind Willie Johnson and Skip James were too old to leave any video materials, Wenders hired two actors to play these two Bruce legends and "imitated" their lives with 35mm film. The black-and-white pictures taken by hand-held cameras deliberately imitate the style of the recording lens. As for J. B. Lenoir, Wenders was lucky to find an information film shot by a Swedish director and his wife, which was a Swedish TV station in the early 1960s.

The information video has never been broadcast. In addition to these expansions, there will be many contemporary singers covering scenes of classic old songs, including bonnie wright, Lucinda Williams, Lou Reed, Eagle Eye Cherry, nick cave and rock stars such as "Bad Seeds", "Jon Spencer's Big Bang", Cassandra Wilson, Garland jeffries and Los Lobos.

Director's comments: Wenders has been attached to music for a long time, including Ry Cooder's guitar in [Texan Paris] (1984), rock star nick cave's guest performance in [Der Himmel uber Berlin] (1987), 1999 [Million Dollar Hotel] with U2.

The position of pop music in his works can not be ignored. In addition, he has many documentary experiences, including "Back to the Light on the Water", "Looking for Ozu" and "Happy Havana" (Buena Vista Social Club, 1999).

[Ode to Cologne] (2000), this time [Soul of Man's Music] is his third music documentary.

The Road to Memphis

Director: richard pearce/Length: 93 minutes.

The director's self-report: The "Hundred Years Blues" series gives us an opportunity to praise the last authentic American art form-before this art almost completely disappears, before its rising rock generation devours it. I hope what we have done is not too late.

Summary: Pierce's The Road to Memphis is lively and interesting, which tells the history of Bruce in Beale Street from the perspective of music and politics. It is rare that the director did not rehearse any scene, but recorded it directly with the lens, so the creativity and tension gained are still commendable. The New Yorker magazine commented on the film: "[Memphis Road] truly reproduces the vicissitudes of these musicians and their initial feelings."

In the film, B.B. King, the king of blues, talks about racial discrimination in his early years, the disappearance of black music, black radio programs, Sam Phillips's legendary Sun Studio, the political liberation movement, and finally talks about how Bruce was discovered by white people-a white boy with empty hands. He grew up under the influence of Memphis blues and later became a world superstar. He is Elvis Presley. The film also tries to prove that Elvis Presley, as the first white man to bring black music and one of the founders of rock music, was inspired by Memphis, a place now called "Elvis Presley City" and a former black blues singer in this city.

Director's Comments: richard pearce is one of the few directors in this series who started as a documentary. As a photographer, he participated in four documentary films and won an Oscar, including the famous music documentary [Love and Peace:

Documentary of Uztok Music Festival (Woodstock, 1970). The first feature film "Heartland" won the 1979 Golden Bear Award at Berlin Film Festival.

Keep warm by the devil's flame

Director: Charles Bennett/Starring: Tommy Redmond, six-year-old Tommy Redmond Hicks.

The director said: I used to regard the blues as a part of the outside world. However, many years later, I found that the blues became my source of inspiration. The meaning, humor and irony behind this piece of music reflect the living conditions of the whole human race. I have always wanted to shoot a story about the blues, which can not only tell the content and essence of the blues, but also outline its form. In a word, this is a blues movie that can make the audience have a concrete impression on the blues.

Abstract: In 1950s, a teenager and his family met accidentally in Mississippi, which started the generation, development and elimination of the music gap between the two generations. On the one hand, it is a "gospel" song as sacred as heaven, on the other hand, it is "blues" music that is regarded as the devil's moan.

Director's Comments: Charles Bennett, a former trumpet player, is a well-known black director in the American independent film industry.

The representative works are "The Sheep Killer (1977)", "My brother's wedding (1983)" and "Sleeping with Anger (1990)", all of which are independently produced, and the cost is very low.

Godfather and son

Director: Mark Levin

Director's self-report: When we filmed Sam Ray and his band at the Chicago Blues Music Festival, they were performing the classic work "I Have My Magic" in Muddy Water. I closed my eyes, like 15 years old, and listened to Paul butterfield Blues Band for the first time in my friend's basement. That day changed my life. Thirty-five years later, that music still shakes my soul. That kind of shock is the feeling I want to capture in this film.

Summary: Chicago hip-hop stars Chuck D (member of Public EnmyBand) and Marshall Chess(Leonard Chess Leonard Chess, heir to Chess Records) decided to jointly produce an album, which brought together the old generation of blues singers and the new generation of hip-hop singers. In addition to performances by koko taylor, Otis Rush, Magic Slim, Ike Turner and Sam Ray, the film also exposed a large number of information clips about Hollin Wolf, Muddy Water and "Paul butterfield" blues band for the first time.

Red, white and blue red, white and blue; Blues music

Director: Mike Figgis

Director's self-report: Why is this black music like blues so popular in Europe? I am very interested in this. To this end, I invited not only traditional blues musicians, but also some new generation figures to participate. I hope that the recording clips of standard blues music in the film and related discussions can enlighten us: Why did blues come to Europe at a specific time and be recreated in Europe and become a universal music form?

Summary: This film focuses on the British music trend in the 1960s, reinterprets the blues, and then brings it back to the United States. The film is promoted in parallel between two parts: on the one hand, the live part specially recorded for this film is performed in the famous Abbey-Road-Studios, and the singers include Morrison, tom jones, jeff baker and Lulu, who give Bruce new connotations; The other part is the lens of historical materials in the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s. In addition, the film also interviewed representatives of various schools of English music in different periods, including Ellie clapton, Lonnie Donegan, Chris Farlowe, Eric Burton, John Mayol and Steve Winwood.

The director's previous works include Oscar-winning works [Leaving Las Vegas, 1996], and

Storm Monday (1990) and sensational] (time code, 2000).

Piano blues

Director: Clint Eastwood

Director's self-report: Blues have always been a part of my music life. After my mother brought back all Fats Waller's records, piano blues became a special part. I also attach great importance to the role of music in movies. This documentary gave me a chance to shoot a film that went straight to the theme of music, which my previous films could not do.

Summary: In this film, Eastwood expresses his long-standing preference for piano blues. In addition to interviews and performance clips, the film also uses a lot of precious historical materials, including Pinetop Perkins and Jay paul mcshane, Dave Brubeck and Marcia Bauer.

Director's comment: Eastwood himself is a piano player, and has written music and episodes for many of his works, including three Oscar-winning films, Mysterious River, Bridges of Madison County, Unforgettable Tonight and Space Cowboy.

[urgent task] (true crime, 1999) [absolute power] (absolute power, 1997),

【 Battle of the Sky 】 (Heartbroken Ridge, 1986) and 【 Perseverance 】 (Wild Billy, 1980).

Let's see what the directors themselves say:

Director's self-report 1

Martin scorsese: If I were a guitarist.

"If I became a guitarist, a real guitarist, I'm afraid I wouldn't be a film director now."

When I was a child, music always seemed to float in the air. Music wafts from the street, from the radios of passing cars, from restaurants and corner shops, from the apartment across the street, everywhere. At home, my mother often hums and sings to herself-I clearly remember her singing while washing dishes. My father likes playing with his mandolin, and my brother Frank plays the guitar very well. Actually, my dad is really a guitar fan. The first music I heard was Django Reinhardt and his "French quintet club".

At that time, from Italian folk songs to country folk songs to western songs, the music played on the radio was really ubiquitous.

My uncle has collected many records, from Gilbert and Sullivan to Swing Music. He was one of my earliest confidants. Perhaps the common love of music has brought us closer.

I remember one day, about 1958, I overheard a song and felt unprecedented. I will never forget the feeling of hearing the guitar sound in the song for the first time. This music seems to call me to listen to it. I immediately found a pencil and wrote down the title of this song. This song is called "See See Rider" and the singer is called Lead Belly. I immediately ran to 49th Street, where I found an old record with a lead belly. The songs included in this folk album include See See Rider, Roberta and black snake moan. I listened to this record with fascination, and my lead belly inspired something for me.

Supervisor's self-report II

WIM· Wenders: Music changed me.

"If there were no music, I might be a doctor now. Music gives me confidence. "

I want to thank the singers and bands of my generation, the Rolling Stones, The Beatles and The Kinks. When I was 18 years old, they invented electronic rock music on the basis of traditional American country blues music. I thought: If they can do it, so can I!

When I was a child, my mother always turned on the radio all day and played German pop songs, but I was not interested in these songs. I don't know which day, I finally got a record player in the living room. By that time, I had collected a lot of records, and I hid these treasures under a friend's bed. My first LP was The Kinks's first album, and I still have it in mono! Although my house was robbed twice, it was usually the CD that was robbed, and no one touched LP. Now I still have more than 3000 LPs in my home in Los Angeles.

I can play saxophone and clarinet, but I soon realized that I lacked talent in this field. I never play in front of others, only jazz. Actually, I want to be a painter. I am a member of The Kinks, the Rolling Stones and The Beatles. All went to art school, all art students who gave up halfway. This inspired me, and I decided not to study medicine and philosophy, but to study painting in Paris. My mother has always felt sorry for it. She always wanted me to be a doctor and wear a white coat. After I made movies for many years, my mother still lamented why her son didn't become a doctor. But my father's reaction to this was much calmer than I expected. He is a surgeon himself, which is why I studied medicine.

He said to me, "I know you are not suitable for studying medicine."

My favorite album is The Request of His Majesty Satan by the Rolling Stones.

There is a song "2000 people" in it, for which Charlie Watts played percussion instruments.

Maybe he doesn't know how good he is now. For me, whenever I can't write,

As soon as I listened to "2000 people", I was able to write wonderfully immediately. This song is really a panacea for my writing disorder.

I am very grateful to Charlie Watts for this.

Director's self-report 3

Clint Eastwood: Playing the piano and telling stories.

"I especially like those people who play the piano in my movies: they sit at the piano, start telling stories, and then get up and leave, leaving only music lingering in our hearts."

When I was filming "Do Your Best" (1980), fats domino happened to attend an open-air performance in Wyoming. He sat next to grand piano and began to play one of his works, I want to walk home with you. Suddenly, everyone stopped and looked over the hill. A dozen elk stood there motionless, their heads pointing in the direction of the piano sound. As soon as the domino stopped playing, they gave up quickly. Elk is fascinated by this music! It seems that not only people like the blues. Everyone likes the blues.

In my eyes, the music in the movie is like punctuation in a sentence, which emphasizes the rhythm of the whole movie. Of course, the soundtrack should set off the plot, not cover it. Sometimes silence is more powerful. For me, writing the theme song of a movie depends on the style of the story. I have made many movies, and I am very lucky to use jazz and blues, two great American art forms.

When I was a child, music became an indispensable part of my life. After Fats Waller died, my mother took all his albums home, and she said she might never buy them again. From then on, I began to practice the piano by listening to his records, and also tried to imitate the tunes of other jazz and blues musicians of that era. I taught myself a little "step piano" and I can write a triad and eight syllables. I became interested in Buchwood, jazz and bebop. I also tell stories while playing the piano, much earlier than making movies.

A few years ago, I had the honor to perform with Jay paul mcshane at Carnegie Hall. I'm playing AveryParrish after work. I haven't played it for a long time. I was going to play halfway, but Jay paul mcshane took over. Before the performance, I said to him, "I don't even know if I remember ... you must come!" " But as a result, he didn't come to the stage, and I talked about the ending unconsciously. Later, he said to me, "Well, you play well, so I think you should continue."