It’s hard to “get into stuff” on Twitter, so I’m opening up a thread to discuss Lars von Trier’s Melancholia. I reviewed it when it first came out in 2011, and I also wrote the capsule review of it in The Dissolve’s 50 Best Films of the Decade series in 2015 – when I had had a bit more time to percolate with it.
Worth noting: as I said on Twitter, I reviewed the film in 2011. I was profoundly moved by it. “Moved” like earthquake moved. Relevant context, in terms of my review, which is very strange to read now: I had had numerous breakdowns throughout my life, starting with a massive one when I was 12. When I wrote the review I was coming out of a BEAR of a one in 2009, and little did I know I was about to be hit again at the end of 2012 – and that would be the one that led to hospitalization and diagnosis, finally.
While I stand by my initial review of Melancholia, I will say that
1. it was the film that turned me around on Lars von Trier, although I still can’t stand Breaking the Waves. I look forward to his films like Breaking News now, an amazing transformation, especially considering the bitching I do about my issues with him at the start of the review.
And 2. I would write that review very differently now, since it was written pre-diagnosis. I wasn’t completely unaware that something was wrong with me, but I lived my life like Kirsten Dunst in the stunning prologue, running in agonizing slo-mo through the grass, with thick grey yarn twined around her legs and body, slowing her down. That was me. I was IN it when I saw it.
There’s a reason the film moved me like an earthquake when I first saw it. There was a huge planet approaching ME, and I wasn’t even aware of it. But somewhere I knew. Even in 2011, I saw Melancholia as almost documentary-like in its evocation of the malady, and what it feels like. I also understood totally why the depressive Justine would be galvanized and calm in the face of disaster, while the more “well-adjusted” sister disintegrated. Depression makes you tough as nails. And pessimism … well, I am very pessimistic, but I usually use the word “realistic.” This film really struck a chord on that level in its validation of a pessimistic outlook – this is something almost NEVER shown in American film, since we love “optimism” and “feel-good” endings to an almost pathological degree.
Melancholia has just grown in power in subsequent viewings.
So here’s an open thread for discussion of this magnificent film.
: This is a collection that starts off with some of her more famous music writing: the Dylan essay, her essay on the Velvet Underground, her essay on Janis Joplin, her essay on admitting she loved the Sex Pistols, her famous essay on Woodstock, but the collection takes us up to her death (in 2006). So there are essays on 9/11, on the Salman Rushdie fatwa, on the rise of the religious right, on her frustrations with the moralistic left. Her work is not easily categorized, and that’s what makes it so great. 
. LONG overdue. There are people out there who – when “music criticism” is mentioned, immediately think Greil Marcus, Robert Christgau, Dave Marsh. Maybe a couple of others. All male. And please: words can’t even express how much I love all of those guys, how much their writing means to me. But she belongs in that pantheon. THEY all think she belongs there (they all knew her, Christgau and she dated for 3 years, they all were in awe of her). She had a wider audience in The New Yorker than the Triumvirate combined. The fact that The New Yorker was giving its stamp of approval to (merciful heavens) pop culture by covering it at all was also radical. At any rate, the obliteration of her reputation (except for those in the know) may have something to do with the fact that she didn’t spend her entire career writing about rock music. Once the 80s hit, she switched mostly to politics and women’s issues. This book is a wonderful correction of the record, putting her into the cultural conversation of music once and for all. Like all excellent critics, you get a sense of her personal taste. The Rolling Stones are her favorite. She grew up on Elvis and Little Richard. She’s okay with the powerhouse female singers of the folk movement, but she gets frustrated with their pacifist-goddess-earth-mother personae. She also wishes they weren’t so self-serious. She wants rock and roll. She wants tough girls, aggressive, electric guitars, sexual ownership. She loved the riot grrrls who came later, loved their irony, reclamation of sexual symbols (babydoll dresses, etc.), all that, but mostly she loved that these women weren’t strumming acoustic guitars or autoharps. They were LOUD. They were filled with sexual drive. (Willis was big on sexual freedom, and the anti-sex strain in feminist circles really alarmed her, and it alarmed her early.) She went to a women’s musical festival in the mid-70s, and pointed out what was good, but also pointed out what was bad (her work is filled with moments when she “breaks ranks” like that, and I say, good for her. Orthodoxy is damaging, no matter what orthodoxy it is.) The collection includes wonderful essays on Creedence Clearwater Revival, David Bowie, the New York Dolls, lots of stuff on Lou Reed (she was fascinated), lots of stuff on her main obsession – Bob Dylan, two awesome essays about seeing Elvis live (once in Vegas, and once at Madison Square Garden), lots of stuff on bands who have now been lost in the mists of time. I adore her. 
, by Robert Ressler. He was a mentor of the dudes who came after, the dudes who “star” in Mindhunter (now the David Fincher series). This is a re-read. It’s about his development of the art (not a science, as he reminds us again and again) of profiling. The murders are so gruesome. Total depravity. But he was heavily involved in profiling some famous killers – John Hinckley, John Wayne Gacy. He interviewed many notorious serial killers, like Manson, Edward Kemper, Sirhan Sirhan. Pretty bleak shit, but right up my alley. 
, by James Joyce. I read this a million years ago. I picked it up again in January. I have 100 pages to go. I have decided to read it without any help. No cheat sheets, no Venn Diagrams prepared for me by others, no explanatory essays. Maybe it’s a dumb choice, but I decided this go-around to not worry about “understanding” – and instead dive completely into the SOUND. It’s the language that matters, not the story – there IS a story buried there, but it’s not really important. The “sense” – whatever sense there might be – is in the sound. James Joyce was nearly blind. He had eye trouble all his life. It makes sense that sound would be more important to him than sight. That how one HEARS things is what really matters. Anyway, I’ve been reading about 10, sometimes 15 – depending on how difficult the sequences are (sometimes I only manage 3 or 4) – pages every morning. It’s a book that lends itself to the early morning hours. Like, 1st cup of coffee early. It’s a book about the subconscious. About the consciousness waking, rising with the sun. About going to sleep. And then waking up. I’m re-reading it for a project coming up. I hadn’t planned on picking it up again, but once the assignment came to me (gotta love it when you don’t have to hustle for work. I’m grateful), I was like, “Okey doke, Finnegans Wake re-read comin’ right up.”) It’s been wonderful. 
– has been indispensable to me. Dance is a world I know very little about, except for, you know, taking dance classes on occasion. I am not well-versed in that world. She helps me see, understand its history. She helps me see Margot Fonteyn, or Nureyev, or whoever, and can explain to me what makes them so special. She’s a marvelous writer. 
is the collection to get. It’s got all of his most famous pieces: his increasing nervous breakdown about the Rolling Stones, his astonishing obituary for Elvis, his essay with the non-alarming title “James Taylor Marked for Death,” his various battles with Lou Reed. A masterful cuh-ray-zee writer. The next collection – 
– is distinctly “lesser than”, although there is a lot of interest here too. I can’t get enough of his writing. Even the sloppier pieces have their golden nuggets of Lester-ish prose.
– including, of course, the title essay, initially published in 3 parts in Esquire to great controversy. (I wrote a gigantic post about “The Crack-up” 
(a collection of essays, including the famous title essay). 
is the collection of eviscerating dispatches H.L. Mencken wrote from his coverage of the Scopes Trial. Sometimes, reading his stuff, I think, “Okay. He’s probably the best writer who ever wrote.” Shakespeare’s got nothin’ on this guy. I am totally exaggerating to make a point: I am so dazzled by his skill that at times he obliterates all other writers for me. Even when I VIOLENTLY disagree with him. He’s really fun to argue with although I get the sense he’d always win – not by being right, but by being more articulate. Here, though, his targets are know-nothings and religious fundamentalism – so here I am in violent agreement with him and I enjoy the lustrous rage with which he attacks these dangerous people. And there’s 
, which has so much good stuff too, including his outrageously sexist opinions – but let’s never forget, he holds men in contempt too. Even more so because he understands men’s bulllllshit. (All my posts about the Chrestomathy are 
, his hallucinatory dispatches from Vietnam. I love this book but it’s actually not in the right section. I’m not a librarian’s daughter for nothing. It has since been moved to its proper place, in the first-person war-reportage section. 
by George Orwell. I go to it again and again. It sits by my bed. I carry it around. It’s not just a post-45 thing. Orwell helps me understand the world. Orwell helps me be brave. Orwell helps me tell the truth. 
