INDEX
Eerie Rendition of ‘Mack The Knife’
The film then shows a portion of Goldin’s previously unreleased video work. Two elderly, overdressed parents are dancing in front of a camera that she turns on herself. Goldin marvels at her mother’s appearance, saying that she is very beautiful. The music for the dance, which they probably chose themselves, is “Mack The Knife” played by the Arthur Murray Orchestra.
At first glance, this video of the parents dancing to their favorite song appears to be a cheerful home video of reconciliation between the daughter and her parents, but it is anything but that. I felt a chill run down my spine.
The lyrics of “Mack The Knife,” now an established standard, are about the return of a criminal who carries a knife in his pocket, and moreover, the song was originally written for Bertolt Brecht’s “Three-Penny Opera The song was originally written for Bertolt Brecht’s “Three Sentences Opera”. As soon as I remembered this, I realized that the fact that Goldin once created “The Ballad of Sexual Dependence” inspired by “The Three-Penny Opera” must have been the result of something so sorrowful, and more than that, so driven by something that could be called a curse, that I was strongly disturbed. I realized that this feeling, which sharply cuts out the “as is” of the subject and makes the viewer shudder while witnessing the moment, strongly resonates with the beauty and horror of the work of the photographer Nan Goldin.
At the beginning of the film, Goldin and the director, Poitras, have the following conversation.
Goldin: “It’s easy to turn life into a story, but preserving the right memories— that’s very difficult.”
Poltros: “What do you mean?”
Goldin: “Stories differ from actual memories. Real experiences come with smells and stains, and there’s no simple conclusion.”
“Actual memories influence me now. Things I don’t want to see become visible, robbing me of peace. Even if I don’t unleash the memories, their influence exists within us, in our bodies.”
The last part of the film. When Lucinda Williams’ “Unsuffer Me” plays at the end of the film, we too are left with a strong desire to be free of “that influence that exists in our bodies,” and to know that its presence is not only within us as individuals, but also within society as a whole. We will understand that its presence is rooted not only in the individual, but in society as a whole. The everyday and the tragic, the beautiful and the deadly, are inextricably intertwined in the lives of many, as this documentary film reveals.
All The Beauty And The Bloodshed
Roadshow nationwide on Friday, March 29, 2024
Director/Producer: Laura Poitras
Cast, Photography & Slideshow, Produced by Nan Goldin
Distributor: The Klockworx
© 2022 PARTICIPANT FILM, LLC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
https://klockworx-v.com/atbatb/
