Of all the great country superstars of his era, Willie Nelson is truly the last man standing (as was made clear by the title of his last album… Last Man Standing). In his mid-80s his output has, if anything, become more prolific. However, if his 1970s outlaw persona could peek into the future and see what 2018 Willie was up to, he might be surprised.
Ari Shaffir ★★★★★
Adam Gorb’s The Path to Heaven, with libretto by Ben Kaye, is his longest work to date (almost two hours’ running time without interval) and on a story that could hardly be more tragic – the Holocaust. Its premiere at the Royal Northern College of Music was conducted by Mark Heron and given by members of Psappha with singers and musicians from the RNCM, directed by Stefan Janski.
The show’s subtitle – “Songs banned by the Nazis” – is a catchy one, and somewhere under the confetti, the stilettos, the extravagant nudity, the sequins and even shinier repartee that are wrapped around Effigies of Wickedness like a mink coat on the shoulders of an SS officer’s mistress is the bruised and grubby story of one of history’s foulest episodes.
They say that behind every successful man is a strong woman. The Flying Lovers of Vitebsk is as much – if not more so – the championing of the unsung hero in this story of the famous early modernist artist, Marc Chagall. His wife, Bella – early muse, sharer of world views and buckets of milk and mother of their daughter Ida, is paid tribute to, for her devotion and dedication to her husband's art.
The freeing of a plane-load of hostages by Israeli forces at Entebbe airport in Uganda in 1976 produced an instant spate of movie versions. Raid on Entebbe starred Peter Finch and Charles Bronson, Victory at Entebbe offered gainful employment to Elizabeth Taylor, Kirk Douglas and Burt Lancaster, while the Israeli-made Operation Thunderbolt featured Klaus Kinski as German hijacker Wilfried Böse.
Transangelic Exodus is a roller-coaster ride. Songs twist, turn, have sudden shifts in tempo, are punctuated by unexpected instrumental interjections, and come to a dead stop after which they resume their unpredictable course. Although Ezra Furman's musical touchstones of late Fifties pop and The Modern Lovers are still apparent, the follow-up to 2015’s Perpetual Motion People comes across as nothing less than a vigorously shaken-and-stirred take on pre-Born in the USA Bruce Springsteen.
Furman says the narrative thread running through the frenzied Transangelic Exodus is his being “in love with an angel, and a government is after us, and we have to leave home because angels are illegal as is harbouring angels. The terms ‘transangelic’ refers to the fact people become angels because they grow wings. They have an operation, and they’re transformed.” He’s also said James Baldwin’s 1956 novel Giovanni's Room, a consideration of the tensions between being straight, gay and bi, has been an influence. Anger courses through the album as he sings of encountering a maraschino-red dress in the charity shop Goodwill and a hair-raising drive to Los Angeles during which he and his companion are visited by what seems to be the devil.
Given that Furman is self-declared as gender-fluid it’s not hard to see Transangelic Exodus as a commentary on his home country, the United States. His relationship with the Jewish faith is another topic he is not shy of discussing. He’s also been very clear about his appreciation of Lou Reed as well as his inability to settle in one place. The drawback with being so open is that the music can be left behind. For any potential audience, the man and his music can become disconnected: autonomous entities.
All of which means Transangelic Exodus comes freighted with expectations, chiefly whether as a whole it can deliver this singular artist’s vision in a unified fashion. Unsurprisingly, the resultant album indeed turns out to be a roller-coaster ride through a very particular worldview. Could it be anything else?
Overleaf: watch the video for “Driving Down to LA” from Transangelic Exodus
Time flies so much more beguilingly in Daniel Jamieson and Emma Rice's 90-minute musical fantasia than it ever has, for me, in Bock and Harnick's Fiddler on the Roof – and the songs aren't bad, either.
On paper this film sounds so worthy: a widowed Orthodox Jewish father struggles to convince the Hassidic community elders that he can raise his young son alone after the death of his wife. But it’s the opposite of worthy on screen – Menashe is utterly absorbing, deeply charming, and very funny. It’s an impressive first narrative feature by documentarian Joshua Z Weinstein, who brings an assured intimacy to the screen from the outset.
The film opens with a long-lens shot of Hassidic men walking on a city street; from their outfits and demeanour they could still be in pre-war Poland, but for the brick phones in their hands.The camera picks out one figure to follow, Menashe (Menashe Lustig), a flat-footed scruff in shirtsleeves who works in a kosher grocery store. His boss is pretty unscrupulous but Menashe’s a decent bloke who warns customers off dodgy goods and banters with his Colombian co-workers. Recently widowed, Menashe’s main concern is persuading the community elders that he is capable of looking after his young son Rieven (Ruben Nivorski, pictured below). Menashe doesn’t want to be married off hastily by a matchmaker, but that might be the only way to prevent Rieven being adopted by his disapproving and snobbish brother-in-law.
Filmed in Borough Park, an ultra-orthodox Jewish neighbourhood in Brooklyn, it’s to Weinstein and his producer Danny Finkleman’s enormous credit that they managed to win enough trust from the local Hasidic community to be allowed extensive access to the streets, restaurants and apartments of this closed world. Ultra-Orthodox leaders don’t allow devout followers to go to the cinema or have TV or the Internet at home; there is a great distrust of all modern media. Cast entirely from non-actors, the script was developed from Menashe Lustig’s own life story – he really is a widowed grocer with a young son – although it leaves out his sideline as a comedian who makes Youtube videos.
Menashe keeps messing up at work and in his family life. He's disorganised and scatty and while he wants to stay within his religious community he can’t accept all their rigid restrictions. He loves his son and is frustrated by his own inability to win him back to his tiny apartment and away from his wealthy relatives. Lustig plays the loveable schlemiel superbly and is well matched with characters from the neighbourhood, some of whom had apparently never seen a film, which must have made directing them challenging. Performed almost entirely in Yiddish, the dialogue was originally written in English by Weinstein and his co-writers Alex Lipschultz and Musa Syeed (surely the only time a Muslim has scripted a Yiddish film). One of the film's many charms is that it respects its audience’s intelligence; there’s no outsider character to act as mediator, and we’re simply immersed in Menashe’s world.
Weinstein has made a remarkable film which not only takes us inside a fascinating closed world without editorialising, but he's also given us a portrayal of a father and son’s bond which could stand alongside that neo-realist classic Bicycle Thieves. Beautifully shot by former photojournalist Yoni Brook, Menashe is enhanced by the subtle use of naturalistic sound and a sparse but highly effective original score. This is a small but perfect gem of a film.
Overleaf: watch the trailer for Menashe